More Polka Dot Problems

I've been collecting photos of quilts with dots. I've quickly found out what not to do if you are going to make a quilt with dots.

Forget about red dots. The quilt above from the Skinner online auction site illustrates the problem. The mid- 19th-century friendship quilt makes me itch.

This one's probably early 20th century.

Mid-20th century Sue

The problem is that we seem to have a built-in aversion to red spots.

These quilts unfortunately remind me of the chicken pox.

Something I saw entirely too much of when I taught kindergarten before the vaccine.

An idea I drew up in EQ but one I am going to forget about.

Dotland for the Holidays

Those of us who grew up as Catholics learned that there's a patron saint for every cause. For my Book of the Saints I wanted a Patron Saint for Dotland.

St. Dorothy was a good option.

St. Dorothy

She is the patroness of brewers, brides, florists, gardeners, midwives, and newly wedded couples. We could call her St. Dot and add polka dots to her watch.

Or it could be St. Casimir, the patron saint of Poland, inspiration for the polka and thus polka dots ---although why these dots should be named for a popular dance nobody knows.

St. Casimir

St. Quirinus is the patron of the obssessive compulsive.

I've already done him once as a digital card for a friend who has a dot problem.

I decided on St. Dot for the patron saint of Dotland, pictured here with St. Barbara on the left.

St. Dorothy is on the right, dispensing dots to the needy.

Click on the photo and it should be large enough to print for framing.

And click here to see a preview of the Book of the Saints for Quilters.

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1836309

Polka Dot Problem

Some people may think I have a Polka Dot problem---an obsession with circles offset in a diagonal repeat.

I do collect polka dot china.

And my dog is named Dot.

And I have a hard time resisting polka-dot items of household decor like the dogbed above. Dot looks very good on it.

And I do have a few too many polka-dot wardrobe items.

Myrna Loy looks better in that little thing than I would.

So I've been analyzing my problem and thanks to the internet I've come up with the source.

As they told us when we were young, comic books would ruin our lives.

My favorite comic was Little Dot

Dot had a dot fixation herself. Each story featured her attempts to dot-i-cize her world. She lived in Dot-Land. Her full name was Dot Polka. It seems I read these in the late 1950s.

Another influence was Polka Dottie with her friend Rootie Kazootie and the dog Gala Poochie Pup. They were book characters. Polka Dottie and Poochie had a rather surreal relationship with the dots which could be stolen, juggled or bounced.

So with such pervasive cultural influences one can see why I have, like Little Dot, a "strange obsession."

High fashion or low

 I come back from my travels with pictures like the one below.

Hotel Lobby in San Jose

If you are crazy about dots you might want to check out these Moda Basic collections.

http://www.unitednotions.com/un_main.nsf/mf_basics

Go to the Moda Basics page

Click on the PDFs to see

Dottie

Essential Dots

and Marble Dots

Stock up now.

Dots and Modernism

Here's another member of the Polka Dot club

Nancy Cunard photographed by Cecil Beaton in 1929.

You may recall this photo of "The Polka Dot Club" in Larned, Kansas about 1900.
See my blog post about a year ago by clicking here:
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2009/11/polka-dot-club.html

Tilly Losch by Beaton

Beaton probably used this photo backdrop in other portraits.

It's so-o-o modern.

This woman may not look like the height of fashion today but she was styling in the 1890s.

Dots were important in the modern age when circles symbolized the ideal of ornament as simple shape.

Bette Davis

All dots and lines

Circles are graphically appealing. They really grab you.

No name for this four patch with a larger circle in the center and smaller circle in the corners (or vice versa).

String quilt wheel, about 1900

These late 19th-century and 20th-century quilts fit right into our modern revival.

String quilt snowball about 1950

String quilt

The string quilts are a combination of nostalgic homespun and modern graphics.

I'm always drawn to these circular designs, most of them variations of a four-patch with a quarter circle. Above are a few sketches from my BlockBase program of the patterns numbered in the 1490s and 1500s.

Names include Full Moon, Snow Ball, Base Ball.

All of which reminds me: I have got to decide where to go with this Fireball top.

Bigger or border? It's about 48" x 60" now.

I've heard that if the circles are white in this string quilt variation it's a Snowball. If the circles are red it's a Fireball.

Missed Holidays

I completely missed National Polka Dot Day which would have cheered up my January if I'd known about it beforehand.

It's not National Just Dot Day. It celebrates Polka Dots---which are circles set in a regular half drop repeat.

This quilt technically isn't it.

The baseball bat probably counts.

So next January 22nd I'll dress appropriately.

I also missed Hari-Kuyo, a centuries old Japanese celebration of the needle. Kimono makers bring their broken needles to the temple on February 8th and place them in blocks of tofu.

Nancy Halpern arranged a Hari-Kuyo festival last February for our quilt retreat.

We had to post a sign, however, in case of overenthusiastic vegans at the cocktail party.

The electric cords represent some broken sewing machines.

Read more about Hari-Kuyo, the Japanese Needle Festival, by clicking here.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKT33020120070208


http://kikuko.web.infoseek.co.jp/english/harikuyo-wakamiya.html


Mark it on your calendar for February 8th next year and save all your needles that have given up the ghost for the cause.