Dot Cutters

News From Dotland

Those of us enrolled in the Karla Menaugh school of applique have long used removable office dots for the templates for our circles.

Stick the dot on the back of the fabric.

Cut out the fabric with a small seam allowance.

Glue the fabric over the dot, getting a nice round circle.

Applique by machine or hand.

Cut out back of dot.

Remove paper.

Uh OH!

Office dots, even the removable kind are too sticky.

I've been thinking. What is going on in the scrapbooking world that could help? I went shopping.

Here's what I found.

A Fiskars Squeeze Punch that cuts 1" circles.

There are plenty of other circle cutters out there, but this one seems to be easier on the hands.

Woo!

Multiple dots cut out of freezer paper.

Now I can iron them on the back of the fabric and remove them easier.

I have to confess that my major hopes were dashed, however. I thought this might cut fabric but--- No Way. I tried fused fabric, I tried fabric with freezer paper on it. It just isn't sharp enough.

But I'm happy with freezer paper dots. There is no stopping me now.

The next shopping expedition:

A paper cutter to cut out 1-1/2" hexagons.

And if you got a ginormous dot cutter you could do snowglobes

Or anything....

Read more about Karla's machine applique techniques in our book

Susan McCord, which you can buy from the Pickledish store at the Kansas City Star website.

https://www.pickledishstore.com/productDetail.php?PID=1040

Dogtooth Borders

Quilt by Anne Dagge, date-inscribed 1818

Collection of the Smithsonian Institution

I've been looking at a lot of quilts with the dates inscribed on them, working on my digital newsletter for 2011. One of the things that impresses me most is how popular the appliqued dogtooth border was before 1860, and particularly before 1830.

Dogtooth border on a tattered quilt from about 1850

When you see pictures of these triangular borders you might think they are pieced, but several years ago quiltmakers Elly Sienkiewicz and Judy Severson, researching quilts by reproducing antiques, realized borders of spiky triangles that look pieced in photographs were actually appliqued. Quilters probably slashed strips in regular fashion and turned the edges under to form triangles.

The source for the name Dogtooth seems obvious; canine teeth are sharp. The word is used to describe several pointed objects such as the Dogtooth Violet in botany and dogtooth spar in mineralogy. In her quilt research, Sandi Fox noted that dogtooth is also a name for an ornament in English gothic architecture, a type of quatrefoil detail found in medieval buildings.

1797

A Vandyke scallop or Portuguese hem on the right

Fox suggests the word Vandyke scallop might be a better name for the quilt technique. She found fashion illustrations in the 1790s featuring geometric borders such as a dress described as having a "chintz border in Vandyke scallops." A search of fashion illustrations from 1790-1820 will show many such clothing details.

Queen Henrietta Maria by Van Dyck,

 wearing a few scallops in the 17th century

Louis Harmuth's 1915 Dictionary of Textiles defines a "Van Dyke" as a "pointed scallop in laces and embroideries." The name comes from the paintings of Anthony Van Dyck, an artist born in Belgium in 1599. Van Dyck achieved fame as court painter to the English king when fashion dictated small pointed beards and elaborate clothing with v-shaped scallops on collars and cuffs. His name still describes a goatee beard, but the association with dress and embroidery has been forgotten.

Vandyke scallops in 1813

Fox also defined the edge as a Portuguese hem. A 1917 book Dressmaking: A Manual for Schools and Colleges described "Portuguese laid work" as a technique "chiefly used as a border decoration."

Cut-out chintz quilt with dogtooth border by Mrs. James Lusby,

 date inscribed 1837-1838

Collection of the Smithsonian Institution

A Star of Bethlehem with a dogtooth border, a photo sent by Jane Hall

One sometimes sees these double dogtooth borders in different colors

I tried to find a tutorial on the internet about how to stitch a dogtooth border (or a Vandyke scallop) but couldn't find any. Instructions are in two of my books and in Judy Severson's Flowers in Applique.

Below is a small illustration from my Quilts From the Civil War.

Begin with two strips of fabric, for example 

1 strip 4 x 20" inches of light

1 strip 2-1/2" a 20 inches of dark

Baste them together with a stay stitch on the bottom.

Mark every 2" on the top of the dark strip

Slash 1-1/2" down at those marks

Turn the edges under and applique them into a point. 

Erma's Wedding Quilt, by Judy Severson and friends

Judy does a very orderly dogtooth border

Nancy Hornback, Reunion Eagle

And so do Nancy and Karla

  

Liberty's Eagle by Karla Menaugh

Karla Menaugh, Sunflowers

Karla has included instructions for her plaid dogtooth border in my book Borderland in Butternut and Blue, available from Kansas City Star books. Click here to read more about the book:

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

 I love to find the dogtooth appliqued edge used in other ways

A quilt from about 1850 with a dogtooth top to the basket

And a dogtooth edge on a scallop from another mid-19th-century quilt

Here's a detail of a terrific album quilt

in the collection of the Winterthur Museum.

See more 19th-century quilts with dogtooth borders by clicking on the links:

Two from the International Quilt Study Center and Museum

Number 2008.040.0195

http://cdn.firespring.com/images/6/8/4/9/c/6d24ebd8-8a84-41a8-949b-c888b4561056.jpg

Number 1997.007.0688

http://cdn.firespring.com/images/a/2/4/a/6/a65515c7-2270-4a60-a8f1-6eb169f2d267.jpg

Another from the Winterthur

http://content.winterthur.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/quilts&CISOPTR=455&CISOBOX=1&REC=3

Chirp, Barbara Brackman, 2010

Inspired by Anne Dagge's 1818 quilt at the top I put a wacky dogtooth border on my little Broderie Perse quilt of paisley birds.

Applique Tutorials

McCordsville, quilt top by Barbara Brackman,

inspired by the work of Susan McCord.

Karla Menaugh's blog offers a class in fine machine applique. A recent topic is how to prepare and applique split leaves or two-tone leaves like those in the quilt above.

http://karlamenaugh.blogspot.com/2010/03/split-images.html

 The pattern is from a book that Karla, Shauna Christensen, Deb Rowden and I did several years ago called Our Favorite Quiltmakers: Susan McCord.

Thanks, Susan McCord by EuJane Taylor,

Photographed at Quilt Market a few years ago.

The Shade Garden Sampler included several applique blocks based on McCord's style.

Shade Garden Sampler by Joan Nell

Cut Glass Dish by Dorothy LeBeouf

Cut Glass Dish by Ilyse Moore

See Susan McCord's original Harrison Rose from the collection of the Henry Ford Museum and a quilted version at Wendy Sheppard's blog

http://ivoryspring.wordpress.com/2008/10/01/a-grouse-y-sort-of-wholecloth/

See more about our book here:

https://www.pickledishstore.com/productDetail.php?PID=1040

Garden of Eden

Adam & Eve, appliqued by Shauna Christenson, 2001, 84" x 84"

Designed by Barbara Brackman and Karla Menaugh from 19th-century quilts.

Our Sunflower Pattern Co-operative was a group of women with various talents working together to reproduce vintage applique designs. My talent is researching and drawing the patterns. Among Shauna's many talents is applique. Karla's talent with this pattern was editing and publishing.

I'd been collecting photos of quilts in this Garden of Eden design ever since I realized there were two similar quilts at the Smithsonian Institution and the Johnson County (Kansas) Museum.

Garden of Eden Quilt 86" x 75" Estimated date: 1850-1880

Collection of the National Museum of American History.

 Gift of Dorothy Diffey Beldsoe in memory of Laura Doty Diffy.

Maker unknown, purchased in Fort Smith, Arkansas about 1900.

Garden of Eden Quilt

By Sylvia S. Queen (1804-1896), probably in LaPorte County, Indiana. Estimated date 1850-1880.

Collection of the Johnson County Museum

This quilt has been over dyed a purplish gray, accidentally or deliberately.

The similarities in this pair are the human figures telling the tale of Paradise, Eve's encounter with the snake and the banishment from Eden. In both the Victorian-era quilts the figures are clothed, Eve in a hoop-skirted silhouette. Also similar are the large multi-lobed florals and the winding grape vine. The Smithsonian believed that the two quilts must be by the same person---Sylvia Queen---but that is assuming too much, like saying that Mary Evans made all the Baltimore Album quilts.

I drew the pattern for Shauna's quilt by combining images from the quilts above.

Five years later Doyle Auctions sold this quilt for $7,000 in 2006. At points north, east and west are human figures telling the Biblical story. The center with the solar system is quite similar to the Smithsonian's. It looks to date from 1840-1880 based on the fuzzy photos.

Again the grape vine border and flat multi-lobed florals frame the center.

The Pilgrim-Roy Collection once had a fourth quilt in this group with the same solar system center enclosed by a scalloped circle.

Eve handing the apple to Adam is nearly identical to the version above.

I don't have an overall photo. What makes this quilt different from the others is the paisley-shaped Broderie Perse applique shapes. Based on the blues and chintzes in the detail shots I'd say this is the oldest of the four, possibly 1840-1860.

If there are four of these quilts with the hoop-skirted figures and the optional central solar system, there may be more. Right now I would have to conclude it was a pattern passed around hand to hand in the mid-to-late 19th century.

To read more about the Pilgrim Roy Collection click here:

http://www.pilgrimroy.com/

See another Garden of Eden quilt by Josephine Miller Adkins in the collection of the Museum of the Daughters of the American Revolution:

http://www.quiltindex.org/basicdisplay.php?pbd=DARMuseum-a0a0r4-a

A late-19th-century version at Colonial Williamsburg.

http://emuseum.history.org/code/emuseum.asp?action=newpage&style=single&singlepage=6&searchxml=%3CeMuseum%5Fsearch+site%3D%22Colonial+Williamsburg%22+date%3D%222010%2D02%2D22%22%3E%3Ccriteria%3E%3Cparams+searchcode%3D%22%2D1%22+pagesize%3D%226%22+currentpage%3D%221%22+orderfield%3D%22%22+orderdir%3D%22%22+profile%3D%22objects%22%2F%3E%3Cbasic+criteria%3D%22quilt%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fcriteria%3E%3C%2FeMuseum%5Fsearch%3E%0D%0A&style=browse&pagesize=6¤tpage=1&page=search&browsepagesize=6&searchtype=basic&profile=objects&wandering=no&term=quilt&basicterm=quilt&pagetotal=133&pagestart=1&pageend=6

The Cat's Meow has posted a detail of a quilt made from our Adam & Eve quilt

http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/1334380180051689367iLHcZD

You can buy the pattern for Shauna's quilt at Quilters Warehouse

http://www.quilterswarehouse.com/p-6525-adam-eve-by-sunflower-co-op.aspx

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.