John Hewson

I've been studying the prints of John Hewson, a Philadelphia wood block printer who was in business from 1774 to about 1820. He's sometimes credited as America's "first calico printer," but there's no way to know who was America's first calico printer. Several people left records earlier than Hewson, though.

The bird is from a snapshot of a Hewson print I took at an exhibit at the Winterthur Museum a year or two ago.

I made a list of all the quilts and counterpanes featuring Hewson's fabric that you can see online. Here's one from the Winterthur.
http://content.winterthur.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/quilts&CISOPTR=380&CISOBOX=1&REC=2

To see more go to my web site http://www.barbarabrackman.com/---to the subpage "Quilt History."
http://www.barbarabrackman.com/faqs2.aspx
At the bottom you'll see a list of clickable quilts.

I am going to do a luncheon Roundtable Discussion called "America's First Calico Printer" at the American Quilt Study Group seminar in San Jose in October. It's time to start signing up so click here to find out more about the seminar.
http://www.americanquiltstudygroup.org/seminar.asp

M-m-m-m Cake!

Birthday Cake by Wendy Turnbull

Here's a low-calorie cake that we've been making in my sewing group. Above one slice of red velvet by Wendy; a cake quilt for Sarah who makes birthday cakes for us all year round and at the top another version by Bobbi Finley, whipped up from The Morris Garden reproduction collection I did for Moda. The Morris Garden fabric should be in the quilt shops in July; the pattern for the Birthday Cake is available from C&T Publishing or your local quilt shop.

http://www.ctpub.com/birthday-cake-pattern/

Serpentine Stripes 2

Celine sent a photo of her grandmother wearing a dress of serpentine stripes. The fashion for these snakey stripes (hence the name) was revived at the end of the century and here we have a woman at work about 1895 wearing a fashionable but serviceable dress. Celine writes that Ellen Mason Grable is standing to the left of her husband Silas Grable. The other men were his brothers, salmon fisherman and loggers in Ilwaco, Washington.

She also writes: "It's funny how us quilters always notice the fabric!"