QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Saturday, May 12, 2012

Virtual Booth at Quilt Market: Metropolitan Fair

Manhattan's Metropolitan Fair
1864

I usually entertain myself in the spring by Photoshopping a virtual booth for Quilt Market---how I'd decorate a booth if I had a large budget and they didn't have a height regulation for booths. Moda will be introducing Metropolitan Fair, my new Civil War reproduction collection, inspired by the fairs and bazaars held to raise money for soldiers' aid societies.

 A recreation of the 1864 Brooklyn Fair
wouldn't fit the height regulations,
 although it would be eyecatching


Here's my imaginary double booth with my Metropolitan Fair project quilt added. The quilt color scheme fits in nicely.

The Civil War fair extravaganzas were so over-the-top I really don't have to Photoshop to create some silly pictures. The events were well recorded and the exhibits and costumes can hardly be improved upon.

I could tell you I was sewing hats this week.

For many years this costume worn at the Fair was thought to be a Civil War nurse outfit. You could stash a lot of nursing supplies under that hat, but it's actually a folk costume from Normandy."The Girls of Normandy" was one of the exhibits at the Manhattan fair on Union Square, known as the Metropolitan Fair.


Another display was the Knickerbocker Kitchen in which re-enactors dressed up in period clothes and did old-fashioned things like spin yarn and cook over an open fire.


Most of these costumed people are from the Brooklyn Sanitary Fair (Brooklyn was a separate city from New York at the time.)


I could photoshop me and my friends into silly outfits, but pictures don't get any whackier than some of these.


Brooklyn: That must be an "old-fashioned" quilt behind these men.

I will be doing an actual schoolhouse (teaching session) for shopowners at Quilt Market next week in Kansas City (3:45 Thursday May 17th----Do come!)

 I will not be dressing in period costume.


And don't look for my virtual booth. It's all imaginary.

11 comments:

  1. Thanks for the virtual booth! Quite interesting!

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  2. So why does Moda not have Metropolitan Fair on their web site???? We like to look but have short memories......

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  3. Sorry Mimi. No links yet because it's not officially OUT until after market. But I will show you pictures and provide links towards the end of the month.

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  4. I love a good Civil War Fair. The pics always look like so much fun. Weren't the ceiling decorations the absolute best. I always wonder what poor old man that didn't go to war had to climb the ladder to hang that stuff.
    I am sure your new line is as grand as your imaginary fair booth.

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  5. I look forward to seeing you at Market. Karmen (Brannock)

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  6. I think you would need the entire building for that display, lol. Can't wait to see the new line.

    Debbie

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  7. Now that would be a booth worth seeing! Thanks for the fantasy. Look forward to your new line!

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  8. I can't wait to see your new Civil War line. Love the quilt design already.

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  9. I am a New Yawker and live in Chelsea, the section of town where the Metropolitan Fair took place. There are still lots of fairs in NYC in the summer on that same 14th Street, and sometimes whole Avenues will close down for a day for the fairs, and they are packed with booths and always thousands of customers strolling and buying every crazy thing in sight. Here's a photo I took for fun of His and Her Combat Boots on sale at a Street Fair on Greenwich Avenue in Greenwich Village.

    http://earlywomenmasters.net/dickinson/a_garden_tis/melody/rhythmic_patterns/slides/his_her_camouflage.html

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  10. Your historic photos give such a valuable American cultural lesson. I always learn something new from your postings. Can't wait to view the new fabric line!!

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  11. Really looking forward to seeing the new line. Will you be making a little Blurb book similar to Lately Arrived from London? It would be a nice companion book.

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