Mystery Pattern: Swirl

For years the owner of this quilt and I have puzzled over the pattern.

She's drawn it up. She is going to make it, she says.

I am not.

But it does stick in my memory because it is so odd (and so difficult to draft---much less sew.)

I was looking at the pictures of cheddar quilts that Kathy Sullivan has collected and came across a cousin.

It's similar in its kind of yin-yang design but this doesn't repeat in the same complex way. (See below for the true Yin-Yang symbol.)

Neither are in my BlockBase computer program or Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.

This is the closest I can find---but it's a distant cousin. Carrie Hall called it Spinning Ball.

The date on the red and white quilt is probably 1930-1950. That curvy ice-cream cone border makes me think it's after 1930 and so much Turkey red would not be likely after 1950.
The chrome orange block quilt is probably early 20th century, or possibly late 19th when so many Southerners made graphic designs with solid-colored cottons.

Thanks to Barbara and Kathy for the pictures.

Jeckyll's Sunflowers

Thomas Jeckyll (1827–1881) was an English architect best known today for the metal work he designed. This pair of brass andirons is an Arts and Crafts classic that has influenced artists over the last century. Jeckyll also did at least one fence of these sunflowers. (There are two spellings of Jekyll's name. Pick your favorite.)

A detail from an andiron and 2 appliqued sunflowers

I designed and stitched the sunflower on the left with my first William Morris fabric collection and Pam Mayfield pieced and appliqued the one on the right with the second, The Morris Workshop. Buy the Arts & Crafts Sunflower pattern for $7.95 from Star books by clicking here:

https://www.pickledishstore.com/productDetail.php?PID=1120

Georgann Eglinski did two versions, one with a pieced sunflower

Above are two paper interpretations.

Left: a contemporary poster, the right one a reproduction wallpaper poster from Bradbury & Bradbury.

The Spencer Museum of Art owns a Jeckyll drawing.

See more of it by clicking here:

http://collection.spencerart.ku.edu/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalSearch&module=collection&fulltext=jeckyll

See a rail from Jeckyll's fence in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum:

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O7753/railing/

See more Bradbury & Bradbury wallpaper at their site:

http://www.bradbury.com/posters.html

See a black & white picture of the andirons (firedogs) that are now in the Freer Gallery by clicking here:

http://osbornandmercer.com/sold.htm

And read about the Freer's Peacock Room, for which they were designed, by clicking here:

http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/online/peacock/default.htm

Susan Weber Soros and Catherine Arbuthnot have written a book about Jeckyll.

Arts & Crafts Sunflower by Pam Mayfield, 42" x 16"

Butternut and Blue in the Civil War

Borderland Sampler by Jeanne Poore, Overland Park, Kansas 2005, 91" x 91"

The quilts above and below are from a book I did a few years ago

 called Borderland in Butternut and Blue.

Butternut & Blue by Ilyse Moore, Overland Park, Kansas 38" x 38".

 Ilyse redrafted the blocks to 12 inches and added her own border.

When I taught the class on which the book is based, we used navy blue and yellow ochre to symbolize the Confederacy and the Union in the Civil War.We tend to think of Civil War colors as "the blue and the gray," but many Southern soldiers had no access to official Confederate uniforms and wore their everyday clothing made of home-dyed butternut. 

Sketch of a Missouri guerilla fighter

from the Library of Congress collection.

Guerilla fighters were referred to as "Butternuts."

Click here to see my guest blog about butternut and blue at the Kansas City Star's Pickledish site.

http://pickledish.kcstar.com/?q=node/1005

I think the color combination symbolizes the North and the South so well I've done two books on the topic.

Borderland in Butternut and Blue features a sampler quilt with some stand-alone projects.

Click here: https://www.pickledishstore.com/productDetail.php?PID=765

Buttermilk and Blue by Dorothy LeBoeuf, Rogers, Arkansas, 85" x 85",

a combination of two blocks from the Borderland book.

Butternut & Blue: Threads of the Civil War contains several pieced and appliqued designs.

It looks like none are available if you check the big online book sources (or they cost twice the original price) but a few quilt shops still have copies. Here's one online source:

http://www.aquiltersfabricgarden.com/books.html

And Quilters' Warehouse sells it. Click here:

http://www.quilterswarehouse.com/p-6533-butternut-blue-by-sunflower-co-op.aspx

I've also used the colors in my Moda collection Civil War Homefront that is in quilt shops now.

Swatches from Civil War Homefront in Sassafras Tan, Sorghum Brown and Ironclad Navy

These new reproduction prints would look great in any of the projects from either book. Below are two reproduction quilts by Karla Menaugh from the Butternut & Blue book.

Western Sun by Karla Menaugh 45" x 45"

Midnight Garden by Karla Menaugh 40" x 50"

I know it's confusing---all these Butternuts and Blues, but I like the way the words sound. And to make things even more confusing Terry Thompson and I did a fabric collection called Butternut and Blue for Moda several years ago, from which the two quilts above were made.

Judy Severson's Broderie Perse

Judy Severson, Blue Garland, 92" x 92"

Judy Severson, Blue Rose, hand stuffed by Judy, hand quilted by Toni Fisher, 78" x 78"

Judy Severson has revived the art of cut-out-chintz applique with her book Flowers in Applique and through her teaching. Chintz applique, also called Broderie Perse, was the earliest applique style. Quiltmakers snipped blossoms out of chintz-scale prints and arranged them on a new background.

I took these detail shots of a block-style chintz applique Judy displayed at last fall's American Quilt Study Group conference.

This detail shows you that Judy, like the early applique artists, doesn't cut around every detail. For this piece she had a wonderful combination---a chintz on a fancy figured background and the same fancy ground as separate yardage. She could cut rather loosely and make it all blend in.

Judy's teaching at The Elly Sienkiewicz Appliqué Academy from February 11 to the 14th. Click here to read more about her and the other teachers:

http://www.ellysienkiewicz.com/teachers.htm 

Judy is also well known for her embossed quilt cards See more about them by clicking here:
http://www.printstore.com/severson.html

Flowers A-Bloom, hand stuffed by Judy, hand quilted by Toni Fisher, 81" x 81"

To see some antique quilts using this technique go to the website of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum by clicking here:

http://www.quiltstudy.org/discover/search.html

On this search page scroll down to Advanced Search and find the menu item Style/Type. Pull down the menu bar there and click on Cut-out chintz(Broderie Perse). You'll find over 30 examples.

Kansas City Star Patterns Online

Thirties quilts have a signature look, not only in the clear, cheerful colors but also in the designs. They have a modern look with simplified shapes, yet complex repeats. Many of those unique patterns were published in the Kansas City Star, like the "Dogwood Blossom" below, a combination of spiky fans and checkerboard blocks.

Dogwood Blossom, published in the Star February, 1934

The Star published over a thousand quilt patterns from 1928 to 1961.

Sunbonnet Sue, designed by Eveline Foland, published in the Star 1930.

You can get Star patterns online by subscribing to My Star Collection. For a $20 annual fee you can download a Kansas City Star quilt pattern once a week for a year---52 patterns.  Each pattern has been redrafted to eliminate inaccuracies in the originals and includes rotary-cutting instructions. You can also buy extras for $2 each.


You have access to a database of sketches of all the Star patterns, a feature I like because if I am dating a quilt like the Sunbonnet Sue quilt above it helps to know that the pattern was published August 9, 1930. The quilt couldn’t have been made before then.

For more information, click here:
http://subscriptions.pickledish.com/

Here are two more Kansas City Star designs.

"The Cotton Boll Quilt" published February 12, 1941

 

 

"Memory Bouquet" designed by Eveline Foland, published in 1930

Julie and Joe and Barbara's Quilt Adventure

All the quilts in this post are from the Quilt Complex Collection

I NEVER travel any more to talk about quilts (Have you tried to carry 10 quilts on an airplane lately?)


But my friends Julie Silber and Joe Cunningham are very persuasive, and since I was going to be in San Francisco anyway I told them I would come out of retirement for their Quilt Adventure (at least Joe likes to say I am coming out of retirement, only because he is younger.)

Julie and Joe's Quilt Adventure II

Sunday, January 31

10:00 am.- 3:30 pm.

San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles

The exhibit at the museum right now is "Still Crazy." I am going to talk about Clues in the Calico. I'll be "playing Sherlock Holmes with some rare, fascinating quilts." I am sure Joe & Julie will be bringing some spectacular pieces from their own and the collection of the Quilt Complex.

Here are the particulars:
The fee of $195 includes
• Guided Tour of “Still Crazy” Quilt Exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Quilts
• Julie Silber presents “Crazier Yet: A Trunk Show of More Antique Crazy Quilts”
• Joe Cunningham on "Using Crazy Ideas: A Timeless Concept” Old & New Quilts
• Barbara Brackman (The Quilt Detective) on “Clues in the Calico”

Check Julie's blog to read more about it:
http://blog.thequiltcomplex.com/

Check Joe's by clicking here:
http://www.joethequilter.com/joethequilter/Welcome.html

And see the Quilt Complex website here:
http://www.thequiltcomplex.com/

Early Quilts & Intarsia

Inlaid work or intarsia quilts.

Left: From the collection of Colonial Williamsburg. Right: Dated 1718 from the British Quilt Museum and Gallery in York

The earliest patchwork quilts seem to be done in a technique that is neither piecing nor applique, but a kind of inlaid work called intarsia. Intarsia was more commonly done in woodwork and stone work, for example this marble intarsia from the Taj Mahal.

Craftsmen in several European cultures created intarsia patchwork hangings, as in the four pictured below, which are featured in a current exhibit in Vienna. Inlaid-Patchwork in Europe from 1500 to the Present will be up until March 14th at the Austrian Folk Art Museum.

 
Christianity is a common theme, but notice the geometric blocks that resemble piecework in the one above and those below. Many of these are probably pieced over paper.
 
 

Welsh Tailor's Quilt, about 1842, from the National Museum of Wales

Click here for more about this quilt:

http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/rhagor/article/1904/

The Masonic symbol of the all-seeing eye is in the center of this one.

When Nancy Hornback and I went to Germany a few years ago looking for sources of applique design we saw several of these, called tailor's quilts, very complex patchwork of wool made by tailor's apprentices as a rite of passage or a project to develop sewing skills (or patience).

A related style: uniform quilts, military quilts or soldier's quilts. The wools in these tend to be very tightly woven fabric known as serge or baize that has the bright color and the texture of felted wool. (Baize is the wool that covers pool tables today.) Uniforms were made of this dense fabric and soldiers in hospitals and on dull duty occasionally passed the time by making complex quilts of uniform pieces. 

Soldier's Bed Cover, made by Jewett W. Curtis (1847-1927), Alaska, dated 1889-1893. 99" square. Collection of the Smithsonian Institution.

Pam Holland's written a book with patterns for a Prussian quilt dated 1776.

See more about it on her blog.
http://pamhollanddesigns.typepad.com/pam_h/quilting_history/

View a British example in the Victoria and Albert Museum by clicking here:

http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/textiles/stories/military_quilt/index.html

And see more photos of some amazing quilts in  Inlaid-Patchwork in Europe from 1500 to the Present by clicking here to see an online exhibit in their press release.

http://www.volkskundemuseum.at/?id=225