Looking for a Challenge? BOM and BOD's

Ad for the Lion Sewing Machine

Perhaps you have a new sewing machine?

And you are looking for a project.

Sarah's Revival by Sue Garman

Sue Garman has two BOM programs at Stitchin Heaven

https://stitchinheaven.com/sarah-s-revival-quilt-block-of-the-month-february-2016

Sue Garman's Hearts in Bloom

Both begin in February.

https://stitchinheaven.com/hearts-in-bloom-quilt-february-2016

I've been looking for some Block-of-the-Month programs using traditional design. Here are a few more for 2016.

Backyard Gatherings From Primitive Gatherings

More traditional applique, this one in wool on flannel.

https://www.primitivegatherings.us/shop/product/9809-light-backyard-gatherings-b-o-m.html

Another wool on flannel below.

Beauty All Around

Pattern by Geoff's Mom Pattern Co.

at Painted Pony & Quilts

http://www.ppnq.com/bom/ponybom.htm#beauty all around

Not so traditional---but looks like fun:

Sue Spargo's Cuppa

https://www.suespargo.com/store-detail.php?cat=31&ID=0

And here's a real challenge---A Block a Day for a Year.

Plan for the 365 Challenge

Sign up to receive a daily block.

She offered EQ inspiration for the center using my Union Blues prints.

This one begins January 1, 2016.

http://www.365challenge.com.au/

https://www.facebook.com/365challengequiltblocks/

Quilters' Paradise in California is planning to offer our Emporia Rose BOM this year. Coming Soon:
http://www.quilters-paradise.com/

I'm planning two series for 2016. On this Material Culture blog I am going to do a weekly William Morris Hexathon Quiltalong beginning in May, going for 26 weeks. We'll be running around England touring places important in the history of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts aesthetic while we stitch hexagon blocks with four-inch sides. My latest Morris reproduction collection Morris Earthly Paradise should be in shops in May so we'll start towards the end of the month.

On my other blog -Civil War Quilts- I am going to do a 12- month sampler Block-of-the-Month. Beginning on the last Wednesday of January, January 27, 2016,  I'll post a free pattern for the first block in Westering Women, a celebration of America's overland trails and the women who walked west in the 1840s and '50s. You'll get a monthly view of  history through the eyes of women who kept diaries and wrote letters 170 years ago, plus 12" block designs, each chosen for a traditional name recalling locations on the way west.

I'll be giving you more information about my series soon.

So get that new machine figured out. 

There's a lot of sewing to be done.

Abba May Alcott's Garden Path Quilt

Quilt attributed to Abigail May Alcott  (1800-1877),

collection of Orchard House Museum in Massachusetts, the Alcott family home.

This four-patch strip quilt may be the perfect reproduction quilt for my new Moda

collection Old Cambridge Pike.

Abba Alcott, Marmee to Little Women author Louisa May Alcott,

is said to have made this quilt in the mid-19th-century.

Abba Alcott towards the end of her life

in the library at Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts,

which is along the Old Cambridge Pike.

See more about Orchard House Museum here:

http://www.louisamayalcott.org/

I found a photo in the Quilt Index. The quilt they call Garden Path

was documented by the Massachusetts project.

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=1D-FC-F6

It's pink and brown......

Combine Old Cambridge Pike with

Laundry Basket's Silver Linings for a wide range of shades.

Silver Linings from Laundry Basket Quilts and Moda

Detail of the original Garden Path,

perhaps a little pink in the photo.

I thought the larger stripe in Old Cambridge Pike would be great for the alternate

strips. It comes in three colorways, one pink, two browns.

The repeat in the stripe is a little over 2"

so your fussy cut strips might be cut about

4-1/2" or 6-1/2".

I'd already figured out a pattern in EQ7 and posted it a few months ago.

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2015/05/union-blues-on-parade.html

You could also use 5" Charm Squares for the four-patch squares.

The four-patches finish to 9" square and are set with pieced triangles cut 7-5/8" square and then sliced to make 4 triangles.

An early illustration of Marmee and the Little Women

A Little Red and Green

Red, White and Green All Over: Traditions and Variations of 19th Century Appliqué  is the current exhibit at the Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery in Lincoln, Nebraska. 

Curator Holly Zemke is a graduate student at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Red, White and Green All Over features quilts from the collection of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum.

You must visit when you go to Quilt House. This show is at the Home Economics building on campus nearby at 35th and Holdrege. It will be up through February 5, 2016. You can see it M-F

while school is in session, but not the week of  December 24, 2015 - January 3, 2016 when campus is closed.


Check the link here:

http://cehs.unl.edu/textilegallery/

Quilt date-inscribed 1863 by Permelia Ann Watkins

IQSCM #2009.044.0002

From the Carlson Collection.

Quilt date-inscribed 1855 by Emily Lyon

#2009.008.0002

I visited with Merikay Waldvogel, Deb Rowden

and Virginia Gunn a few weeks ago. We had a wonderful time

exclaiming about details and design.

The edge of this quilt not only has a scalloped applique

but a cording inserted right into the edge. Dr. Gunn would

notice that right away. Look for the detail when you see the show.

Holly included regional German dress in red and green,

an ensemble from the collection donated by Felicitas Lampert,

an expert on traditional Germanic clothing.

Not all the quilts are red and green on white.

This Pennsylvania sampler is on blue.

Princess Feather

#2009-004-0003

From the Carlson Collection

New Galleries at Quilt House in Lincoln

Here are some pictures of the International Quilt Study Center & Museum's expanded galleries. Last summer they opened the new space recently built behind Quilt House.

I recently visited. The size and scale is impressive.

They have much more room to show many more of their quilts.

"The 13,200-square-foot expansion was made possible by a $7 million gift from the Robert and Ardis James Foundation. The Jameses were instrumental in founding the quilt center when they donated their extensive collection of quilts to the university in 1997 as well as the lead donation to build the museum, which opened in 2008. Robert A.M. Stern Architects of New York with Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture of Omaha designed the building and the expansion."

"Getting to Know You," the inaugural exhibition in the expanded gallery, features 29 quilts representing the breadth of the center's 4,500-plus-piece collection, which spans more than four centuries and 25 countries."

We saw several quilts never published. I don't remember ever seeing that early wool checkerboard before. They give the viewer a wide perspective, world-wide and across time, and incorporate

viewer's comments. See the label here:

http://www.quiltstudy.org/exhibitions/nowshowing/gtky/checkerboard.html

Merikay is always glad to see a Panel Quilt

Silk hexagon quilt, England

Patchwork Kimono, Japan

American Log Cabin with 1/4 inch logs

Just how many logs are there?

Here's some of the information from the exhibit catalog:

We spent the last year getting to know our audiences around the globe.
In order to discover peoples’ ideas and feelings about quilts, we asked our friends and followers to vote for and comment on pieces that represent our diverse collection.
And they delivered. We received more than 1,000 responses via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, an online voting page, and in one-on-one conversations. Our online audiences and local friends voted on nearly half of the quilts you see in this gallery.
Quilt House team members and associates also took a turn. We selected quilts and contributed our thoughts from both expert and personal points of view.

I was pleased to see this Thousand Pyramids from the Holstein Collection.

It is not really a triangle but a four-sided shape.

See more charm quilts in this odd pattern at this post:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2015/11/tessellations-5-unusual-quadrilateral.html

Here's a link to their website, but do note they are closed on Sundays in the winter.

http://www.quiltstudy.org/visit/

"Getting to Know You" is up until February 6, 2016.

Alice's Scrapbag: Mama's Wrapper

A small sprig print in my reproduction collection

Alice's Scrapbag is named Mama's Wrapper.

Scrapbags, real and imaginary, would have fabrics

 leftover from making wrappers.

A wrapper was ladies' at-home wear, often made of cotton.

"Lawn with ruffles or white material with flouncing look equally well."

Godey's Lady's Book

Wrappers are robes split down the front.

Do note that petticoats and hoops could be worn under the wrapper or not.

Wrappers could be elaborate as in this silk/wool example.

Harper's Bazaar, 1871 in the age of the bustle.

But a woman without an excess of servants would choose a cotton print.

Paisleys, madder shades and border prints were popular choices.

Talk about a border print!

In her 1873 book The Ladies' Book of Etiquette, Fashion, and Manual of Politeness, Florence Hartley explained the role of the wrapper:

"The most suitable dress for breakfast, is a wrapper made to fit the figure loosely, and the material, excepting when the winter weather required woolen goods, should be of chintz, gingham, brilliantine, or muslin. A lady who has children, or one accustomed to perform for herself light household duties, will soon find the advantage of wearing materials that will wash.....a lady should never receive morning callers in a wrapper.”

The print is reproduced in six colors in

 basic madder reproduction shades with a little bright blue.