May Morris Conference

May Morris, a triple portrait by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Oh! to be in England when the Pound is Worth $1.43

and there is a May Morris Conference on

May 13 & 14, 2016 at the William Morris Gallery.

Tickets are sold out but one can still get on the waiting list.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/may-morris-conference-2016-tickets-20273757354

Honeysuckle fabric from the Best of Morris for Moda.

Some attribute this design to May.

From their webpage:

"The William Morris Gallery is to host a landmark conference presenting important new insights into the career of leading arts and crafts designer May Morris, the younger daughter of William and Jane Morris.The event, which marks thirty years since the publication of Jan Marsh’s seminal biography, Jane and May Morris – A Biographical Story, will bring together new research on May’s life and work from curators, academics and independent scholars. The conclusions of the conference will inform a major new exhibition of May Morris’s work at the William Morris Gallery in 2017.

May Morris sitting next to Henry Halliday Sparling her husband.
The man who has her attention is George Bernhard Shaw.
Collection of the Cheltenham Gallery & Museum.

"Included in the two-day study event are visits to the V&A’s Clothworkers’ Centre and the William Morris Gallery’s collection store to view rare May Morris textiles. Delegates will also have the opportunity to take part in a riverside walk exploring the environment in which May lived and worked in Hammersmith, led by the William Morris Society.

The keynote lecture will be delivered by Jan Marsh, who will reflect on the growth of public and academic interest in May Morris’s career since the publication of her biography in 1986.
Jan Marsh, President of the William Morris Society, says: ‘Always overshadowed by her illustrious father and also by her mother’s reputation as a Pre-Raphaelite muse, and originally ignored by the Dictionary of National Biography, May Morris has never received the attention her own achievements deserve. This Conference will explore many facets of her career, bringing a wealth of recent research into view.’ "

Embroidery designed by May Morris,

"Welcome Maids of Honour"

"You do bring in the spring and wait upon her."

This version in green is from the collection of Manchester Metropolitan University

http://ibs001.colo.firstnet.net.uk/mmu/index.php?a=backward&s=item&key=BYTozOntpOjA7aToxOTcyO2k6MTtpOjQ7aToyO3M6MTg6IkFkZGl0aW9uYWwgVmlldyBvZiI7fQ==&pg=1

May in the 1930s

If you haven't got tickets you can console yourself by reading Jan Marsh's

Jane and May Morris – A Biographical Story,

or any of Marsh's books on the women of the Arts and Crafts movement.

I'm planning your virtual tour of Morris sites in England in the weekly Morris Hexathon Quiltalong, which starts here on May 7.

Block from the Morris Hexathon by Becky Brown.

See a Flickr Gallery of May Morris illustrations from the Cheltenham Gallery here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/artsandcraftsmuseumcheltenham/albums/72157629062805086/with/6920417643/

Quilts on the Kansas Frontier

Quilt dated 1876 by Drusilla Showalter Cole,

Mound Ridge, Kansas. Kansas Quilt Project.

The Missouri/Oklahoma/Kansas/Arkansas quilt study group (MOKA) is meeting in Leavenworth this weekend April 1 and 2nd, 2016. See the program and registration form here:

https://dogwoodquiltguild.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/moka-ks_all-forms_final_apr-2016.pdf

Carol and Ron Elmore will be talking about the “The Life and Quilts of Ida Stover Eisenhower” in the morning on Saturday and I will be doing a program on the Kansas Quilt Project's search for "Quilts on the Kansas Frontier."

It's been over thirty years since we started the Kansas Quilt Project and over 25 since we began publishing our findings. I thought I'd revisit the research and see if I'd found anything to contradict that information.

Nancy Hornback and I were particularly interested in quilts made in Kansas between 1854 (when the Territory was opened to European and African-American settlement) and 1880. We hyposthesized we'd see quilts made here that looked much like the quilt styles people had known back in the east.

This is supposed to be the first house built in Lawrence, 1854.

What kind of quilts were made in frontier Kansas?

The lecture will tell you how many we found that could reliably be

attributed to a Kansas quiltmaker before 1880---which can be considered

the end of the frontier in most of Kansas with the coming of the railroads.

Spoiler Alert:

1

Lots of families brought in quilts they thought were made by

pioneers but we only found one date-inscribed example 

where we had evidence the maker actually lived in Kansas.

Thank you, Drucilla, for dating your quilt.

We published our findings in our book

Kansas Quilts & Quilters

and in a 1990 issue of Kansas History.

Read my article on "Quilts on the Kansas Frontier" here:

https://www.kshs.org/p/kansas-history-spring-1990/15228

The link doesn't seem to work. Try a web search for these words:

textile diaries kansas history

and it should come up.

If your hypothesis turns out to be completely wrong --- you spend your allotted timed telling people why you think you didn't find what you were looking for. And that's what I'll be doing.

William Morris Precuts and Civil War Parallels

Civil War Parallels

The town of Stow-on-the-Wold in the British Cotswolds made a Civil War quilt for Appomattox, Virginia last year.

"The pioneering patchwork is a surprise present from Stow-on-the-Wold to US town Appomattox, Virginia. The colourful ‘Civil War’ quilt celebrates a newly-forged ‘friendship link’ based on an historical parallel. Stow staged the final battle of the 1st English Civil War, in 1646, and the Battle of Appomattox Court House was the last in the American Civil War in 1865 – marking its 150th [in 2015]."

British readers can tell us if the kids are

wearing Roundhead hats.

I like it that they chose William Morris prints for the quilt

(especially like it that they are MY William Morris prints.)

The border is "Anemone" from the Best of Morris line last year.

Read more about the surprise quilt:

http://www.stowcivicsociety.co.uk/quilt/4591176460

And look here for more information about the precuts from my

latest Morris-inspired Moda collection

Morris Earthly Paradise. April Delivery!

http://www.unitednotions.com/fcc_morris-earthly.pdf

10-inch square Layer Cake

Kaw Valley Quilt Guild Show 2016

Sedona Star by Shari Novak Johnson.

Quilted by Kelly Cline.

Shari's quilt grabs your eye as you walk in the door.

She made it in a block of the month workshop.

The design is by Sarah Vedeler.

Marmalade, an old top quilted by Kelly Cline.

The Kaw Valley Quilters' Guild show is over today April 3, 2016 at 3.

Drop by at 3430 Iowa in Lawrence, Kansas. The show opens at 10.

Two Kathies in charge of stuff.

See more here:

http://www.kellyclinequilting.com/2016/03/kaw-valley-quilters-guild-annual-show-lawrence-ks/

17 Birds by Karla Menaugh

We do a miniquilt raffle every year benefitting various charities.

Color Play is by Georgann Eglinski

Winter Stars by Kathe Dougherty.

Quilting by Sandra Morgan Cockrum.

Gemini Rainbow by Kim Rodman

Almost a Lady by Roseanne Smith

The Life of Riley by Claudia Mozur

Hot Mess by Deb Rowden is another mini you can own.

The City Sewers have been working on this quilt

for five years. It's wool, and embroidered with

things we've overheard (or said ourselves)

plus important events.

Linda just bound it with period green rickrack. Lovely finish

for a unique group vision (as we might describe it.)

I'll show more of this later.

Charm Quilts and Odd Fellows

A charm quilt from 1870-1900, a single diamond

shape. The goal was no two pieces alike.

Third Time's A Charm

28" x 36"

405 Pieces

I just finished binding this hand pieced, hand quilted

charm quilt. There are duplicate pieces, but

I didn't intend for that to happen.

I've been keeping track of names for charm quilts in which every piece of fabric is different (or at least one attempts the idea.)

Tumbler shape, quilt top from 1920-1940 perhaps

As I said in an earlier post I feel confident that the name Charm Quilt was in use in the 1870s.
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2015/08/charm-quilts-not-everybodys-fan.html

Here in 1878 is a reference to 8-year-old Myrtie Benjamin winning 50 cents for a charm quilt at the fair in Montpelier, Vermont.

But the idea of specifically choosing fabrics with no repeats is decades older. I recently found a reference in 1837 to Lucy J. Bowler's entries in the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association Fair. She entered two. "In one, every square is a different style."

That might refer to a sampler in which the blocks are different patchwork patterns, but it could refer to fabrics.

From the Pat L. Nickols collection at the Mingei Museum

Estimated date: 1870-1900

I've been finding  period names other than "charm" for the idea. One name is Odd Fellows as in the above 1876 explanation in the Christian Monitor. The author suggests a diamond for use in "one kind of patchwork known as Beggars quilt,' or having no two pieces alike they call it 'Odd Fellows.'"

 I'm guessing that a Beggar's quilt here is a scrap quilt and an Odd Fellows is a charm quilt.
.

Mrs. John Middleworth of Detroit won a prize with an "Odd Fellow's quilt patch work" in the 1856 Michigan Agricultural Fair.

I've found variations on the Odd Fellow's name

Below Harriet Stanley won a prize in 1853 in Washington City in the Mechanics Fair with her Odd Fellows' delight.

But because there are no pictures we have no idea what these Odd Fellow's quilts might look like.

This is in my Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilts Patterns as #147-

Herringbone or ZigZag.

I've been sorting pictures and names for tessellated designs, the kind of pattern used for charm quilts.

My latest way of keeping track of them is using Pinterest pages

sorted by BlockBase numbers.

See my Pinterest page for Tumbler shapes here:

https://www.pinterest.com/blockbase/blockbase-one-patch-miscellaneous-4-sided-figures/

I think this is the third time

I've done triangles.

There are many other possibilities.