Past Perfect: Sue Garman

Detail from Borrowed Roses by Sue Garman

This month's Past Perfect Quiltmaker is Sue Garman. I'd been thinking about showing Sue's quilts and then she passed away last month, much to the sorrow of her friends, family and fellow classical quilters. Here's a tribute to an important quiltmaker and designer of our time.

Borrowed Roses was inspired by Rose Kretsinger's 1929 quilt

in the collection of the Spencer Museum of Art.

See the original Rose Tree quilt here:

http://collection.spencerart.ku.edu/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=11181&viewType=detailView

Sue Garman with one of her non-traditional quilts

From the Quilt Show.

On her webpage Sue said she had been making quilts for 40 years and that's why she had so many great ones to show.  That is not all of it---or even half of it. She had a real gift for interpreting quilts from the past, occasionally exact copies like the Borrowed Roses, often clever interpretations.

Twirly Balls & Pinwheels

Lily Rosenberry

In recent years she'd inspired many with her applique quilts.

She certainly knew how to fill a square block.

Baltimore Squared

Pennsylvania Star

Her color sense was enviable too. She could capture 19th-century shades and go out on a limb by pushing them too.

Tucker's Tulips

My Old Kentucky Beau

Postage Due

Sleeping Beauty

The Washingtonian

My Country Tis of Thee

Detail of Sue's Borrowed Roses

Sue in Texas was a lot like Rose Kretsinger of Emporia, Kansas, who inspired a small revival of classic applique in the 1930s.  Like Rose, Sue was innovative, generous and just a touch competitive.

People wonder why so many masterpiece quilts came out of Emporia, Kansas. In the future they may wonder why so many classics came out of Houston, Texas.

Patricia Meyer's Texas Two Step used  Sue's Lily Rosenberry block for the corners.

Sue through exhibiting her quilts, teaching, publishing  patterns and blogging and inspired a larger revival of classic applique in her own time. 

Georgann Wrinkle's Little Lily from Sue's blog.

We can envy the friends in her small bee who seem to have received periodic patterns and challenges from Sue.

Student's work in a class. Rebecca's Stars.

Sue's daughters are maintaining her webpage, blog and the pattern business. The webpage Come Quilt has lots to see under patterns and gallery.

http://www.comequilt.com/

The blog (quite a lonely place without Sue) is worth scrolling backwards through the monthly posts for insight into her designing and her recording of the things she saw that impressed her.

http://suegarman.blogspot.com/

Halo Medallion

The 2017 Block of the Month on the Quilt Show is a Sue Garman design, pieced by Carolyn Hock

and quilted by Angela Walters.

https://thequiltshow.com/daily-blog/142-newsletter/25156-introducing-the-halo-medallion-quilt-the-2017-tqs-bom-from-sue-garman

There's an Instagram page for Sue's quilts. Click here and add some with the tag #suegarmanquilt

https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/suegarmanquilt/?hl=en

Any ideas for a traditional quiltmaker I can feature on a Past Perfect post here?

PAST PERFECT QUILTS: Hortense Beck

Detail of one of her Mary Brown copies by Hortense Beck.

The Trade & Commerce Quilt

Reproduction by Hortense Beck,

above and below.

"Trade & Commerce Quilt" original.

Hannah Stockton Stiles, About 1830.

Collection of the Fenimore Art Museum, New York

See more about the original Trade & Commerce quilt at these posts

http://fenimoreartmuseum.blogspot.com/2011/07/story-stitched-in.html

http://quilt1812warandpiecing.blogspot.com/2012/05/pictorial-patchwork.html

Beck was a master at copying antique quilts.

Hortense Horton Beck 1920 -2009

From her obituary in 2009:

"Beck spent 30 years replicating historical album applique quilts, as well as creating her own quilts. Recently her large quilt collection was given to the International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln,"

I thought I'd regularly introduce you to some masters of traditional quilting, particularly to people who are influenced by antique quilts. Beck, who worked quietly in Topeka, Kansas, was one of the most productive and skilled. She drew her own patterns from pictures she found in books. As far as I know she stitched all these by hand and hand quilted them herself.

Stars & Stripes Forever

by Hortense Beck

IQSC has pictures of 60 quilts by Hortense Beck at their website.

Go to their search page here:

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

And type her last name Beck in under Advanced Search/Quiltmaker.

Hortense Beck, Cotton Boll

Hortense Beck

Mary Brown #3

Look for another Past Perfect Quiltmaker next month,