Past Perfect: Kathy Doughty

Gypsy Kisses by Kathy Doughty

February's Past Perfect star is Kathy Doughty of Sydney, Australia. Here's what she says about the above quilt, her favorite of those she's made.

"It looks old and authentic which is something that I love. Although I generally work with bright colors, I love reproduction fabrics and old style color combinations. I believe if the quilting sisters of the past had our fabrics they would have loved using them in what are now the antique quilts we love!"

Each month I feature a quiltmaker who has drawn inspiration from the past and influenced the market on how to use reproduction prints. When you look at Kathy's quilts the words "reproduction fabrics" are not what comes to mind. But she is inspired by quilts from the past---the recent past.

Kathy is one reason we have to re-orient our compasses with South at the top of the map. Australia is the center of the quilt world today

.

Who's in the antipodes now?

Kathy is originally from the U.S. She spent a decade in New York City in fashion and marketing. She met her Australian husband while working for Swatch Watch at a snowboarding event and moved to Australia in 1990. She and Sarah Fielke opened the shop called Material Obsession in Sydney in 2002. Kathy became sole owner five years later.

Material Obsession is an international travel destination.

Shop books and an innovative internet presence have been quite influential on the quilts of the 21st century

Teachers and students are as creative as Kathy

Teachers like Marg Sampson George have developed techniques and styles

 (This is Kelly's work from a Marg class)

Liberty Fields

Nineteenth-century patterns updated.

Fairlawn

Fractured

Kathy talked about her design process in an interview with Jen Kingwell :

"I love antique quilt books for layout and structure ideas. In truth though, most of my designs actually happen on the design wall in my studio. I start a quilt with a stack of inspiring fabrics and a shape, and then I lay out the pieces on the way until I like how they work together."

Vintage top from about 1960---online auction

Kathy's eye is drawn to the quilts from 1940 to 1980, a fairly neglected area until she began exploring them.

Vintage Spin by Kathy Doughty

Characteristics of the era: vivid colors with a busy neutral (think dots) and the idea of pattern on pattern. 

In her book Adding Layers she talks about Vintage Spin 

"Over the years I have enjoyed collecting vintage fabrics. Some are a bit worn, some wrapped in plastic, some thrift shop clothes....Vintage Spin is a quilt made from those specially collected fabrics that were old or just looked old."

She's great at finding fabrics that "just look old" and combining

them in novel ways that echo that crazy 1960s quilt aesthetic.

This deconstructed Dresden Plate is quilted with Perle cotton twist with the knots on

tops (a strange but common characteristic of 20th-century quilts)

She's now designing fabric for Free Spirit.

Horizons should be in shops this month.

See her shop Facebook Page
https://www.facebook.com/Material-Obsession-227097140676247

And Instagram page:
https://www.instagram.com/matobsgirl/

Read an interview with Jen Kingwell here:
https://redthreadstudio.com/blogs/featured-designer/105816198-featured-designer-kathy-doughty-of-material-obsession

And see a trunk show at the Eugene Modern Guild site here:
http://eugenemodernquiltguild.blogspot.com/2011/07/kathy-doughty-material-obsession.html

Uncommon Patience or Useless Work?

Throughout the history of American patchwork, some quilters have hoped to astound the audience---or at the least the local newspaper editor looking

for a little filler. 

27,656 pieces in 1828, Doyleston, PA

Eva Margaret Delaplain Rogers, Missouri,

 30,672 pieces she says

Here's an excuse to show some patchwork feats

with 19th-century editorial comments.

I'm not counting these pieces. The quilts have nothing to do with

the newspaper clippings, except for an emphasis on numbers.

7,239 pieces in Charleston, SC, 1834

"An uncommon stock of patience and perseverance"

Bessie Ely, Collection of the Smithsonian Institutiuon

From the New York Project & the Quilt Index

Broken Dishes

Counting stitches in New York

Ocean Wave, Annie Hart Beall, Collection of the Ohio Historical Society.  

14,572 pieces says the caption in the Ohio book, Quilts in Community.

58,104 in 1886 in Granada, MS

An octagonal block

Curiosity Quilt with 20,218 pieces in 1912 in Ware Shoals, SC

From Robert Shaw's book

American Quilts: The Democratic Art

45,966---Chatanooga, TN, 1888

"Mary Sewell, a sweet 16-year-old young lady who resides near Chattanooga...has pieced a quilt that has 45,966 scraps in it. It is fearful to think a mind may also go to pieces fastened so long to such useless work. The quilt when completed will be no better for use than the $2 quilt made of plain material."

Elnetta Josephine Gifford, Michigan Project & the Quilt Index.

From Florida Memory

Queen Udell. Her husband says she has the "Patience of Job."

"5810" it says in the center

By Sallie Jane Woodward,Iredell County, North Carolina.

 North Carolina project & the Quilt Index. 

How Old is This Quilt? Win a Free Fat Quarter

A long time ago Margaret signed and dated this quilt giving us an opportunity to use it as a teaching tool for dating quilts. 

I have a new feature on the American Quilt Study Group's Facebook page. Once a month in 2018 I will post an antique quilt with the date on it (and not tell you the date). Readers can guess a date and tell us why they picked that particular year.

After a week I'll post the actual date and those who came closest will get a a fat quarter of reproduction fabric in the mail.

Oh Boy!

We can all learn something by the crowd-sourced dating information. Here are some of the educated guesses about Margaret's quilt:

Sharon P: I will go with 1850s, based on fabric and double rod quilting [or is it triple rod?]. [Two lines then a skip and two more lines = double rod]

Taryn: The 1850s because I own a dated (1854 or 1857, can't tell which) quilt that has very similar fabrics, quilting and design style

Teri: I also guess c. 1850. the binding looks like that early unreliable blue-over-yellow green of that era. Also as best I can tell, the red part of the peonies is made of 3 chevrons rather than 6 diamonds, which is how some southern Indiana quiltmakers pieced Polk's Fancy quilts of the Mexican War era.

(I hadn't noticed that chevron applique Teri. Just assumed those were diamonds)

Kathy M.C: The funkiness of the appliqué, specifically the border, tells me just shy of 1850. Thus my decision on 1848.

Barbara G: 1860-1870 turkey red print set Foulard, yellow in the small figures, Indiennes? Block set on point? Vines on the border

Kay: 1848, though it could be later if someone saved fabrics. Double row quilting, yellow green with a simple print, and "Carolina lily" variation say early red and green to me. No chintz or interesting prints to date it much earlier. Repeated block pattern tends to be early or much later. Later greens tend to have more blue, but hard to tell if my computer screen makes it look different than it is.

Margaret C. Roberts her quilt

done March the 7th

1848

Here's who guessed 1848: Kathy, Kay & Roberta. And as Teri said: "A lot of us were pretty darn close." We AQSG members are really good at this. And if you want to get good make a guess and read their comments each month in 2018.

We'll do it again in February. Check the AQSG Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/AmericanQuiltStudyGroup/posts/

Daniel Dobler's Album Quilt

At the Maryland Institute Fair in 1852 Daniel Dobler showed a quilt he'd been given by students when he left teaching in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania to return to Baltimore.

Remarkably, his quilt survives.

Daniel's great-granddaughter Mary Sauerteig (1931-2016) showed the quilt she'd inherited. Her grandfather's name was on one of the blocks.

"From John William B??? Dobler

To his affectionate Father

Elizabethtown Lan Co Pa

Nov 12th 1849"

UPDATE: Virginia tells me: John William Baehr Dobler (1827–1892)

"It was given to Mary Sauerteig's great-grandfather, Daniel Dobler, by students, relatives and friends upon his retirement from teaching in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. Mary's grandfather, along with another of Daniel Dobler's sons, each provided one of the squares."

Variations of the fleur-de-lis pattern were popular 

for album quilts at the time. I have pictures of five with dates of 1849

 on them, this one from the Moda collection.

In a history of Lancaster County Dr. Daniel Dobler (1804-1859) is described as a physician with no formal medical training. "After working in a drugstore he became a practicing physician at 28." In 1844 "he decided to teach at the schoolhouse adjacent to the Lutheran Church." Son John William also maintained a school in Elizabethtown. The quilt may have been made by members of a Lutheran church, perhaps Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church where two infant Doblers who died in the 1830s are buried.

Quilt dated 1849

Another son Gustavus (1839-1903) became a Maryland state senator. His biographies reveal a bit more about his father. Daniel was born in 1804 in Baltimore to German immigrants.

Christina Dobler's grave. Husband

and wife are buried in the Baltimore Cemetery

 He married Christina Barbara Iehle (1802-1867) from Wurtemburg, Germany. He is described as a "chemist, physician and teacher [and] a manufacturer of paper boxes" in Baltimore. 

 Dobler quilt on display

The Doblers had at least seven children and it seems that some also entered handiwork at the Baltimore fairs. In 1852 Miss P.T. Dobler of Elizabethtown entered a vase of paper flowers (presumably daughter Paulina Theodora) and Miss Catherine Dobler showed two cases, crochet work.

Block from a quilt dated 1849 for Sarah Mullen,

Lancaster County, Collection: Lancaster History.

Links among  people who signed mid-19th century album quilts are mostly unknown, but church connections are obvious in many. School connections are not found so often. Daniel Dobler's is one of perhaps twenty school-related signature quilts I have in my picture files. This year's Block of the Month at my Civil War Quilts blog is focused on school connections with a dozen pieced album blocks planned. See the first post in Antebellum Album here:

https://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2018/01/antebellum-album-1-wandering-lover.html

A pattern of sorts for this combination of hearts and fleur-de-lis.

Print it at 200%.

And read more about the fleur-de-lis albums here:

https://encyclopediaquiltpatterns.blogspot.com/2017/06/philadelphia-beauty-or-four-frogs.html