Winners for the August THIRTIETH Contest Yesterday

I have four winners for the precuts of Baltimore Blues.

The contest is over.

The magic number = 7

Michelle was the first to say she'd bought 7 quilt books

Magic Non Number = Zero

Hueisei was the first to say she bought none.

Magic Word = Library

Sharee in New Zealand first to write the word library.

"I haven't bought any but have been borrowing lots from library."

The prize for the most (varied titles)

Kathy D "hit the jackpot at a thrift store and scored about 60 - 80 books. I never counted them. Some are finding their way to new homes."

(No, Barbara, it doesn't count if you buy 1,000 copies of your own book.)

Sorry I made a mistake in the date. It really was the 30th. Not enough proofreading the final post.

Received over 200 replies. I'll tally the results and let you know.

Thanks for reading the blog and replying --- and buying quilt books.

The book photos are from a web page: 35 Things to Do With All Those Books

https://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/what-to-do-with-all-those-books?utm_term=.rx5RD4WNe#.xqpD7XEwW

Three Million Quilt Fabric Giveaway

Sometime this month the stats will say I've had three million hits on this Material Culture blog over the past five or six years.

THE CONTEST IS OVER! MORE ABOUT WINNERS SOON.

Thanks for reading it.

Time to celebrate!

What would be fun?

You readers would probably like a give-away.

I've got a bunch of precuts from my next Moda line

Baltimore Blues and I'll be glad to ship them around the world.

Big ones to the US; small ones across the oceans.

Me, I think I'll have a few Cheetos and a glass of Malbec. 

Morris Hexathon 17: Folly

Morris Hexathon 17: Folly by Bettina Havig

Morris Hexathon 17: Folly by Becky Brown

Becky did not add any seams although it looks like she did. She fussy cut those triangles so a little red shows.

I named this week's hexie for a famous English folly,

the Broadway Tower in the Cotswolds.

An English folly is a fanciful building constructed for no purpose other than pleasure. This one on a high point in the Cotswolds is a pseudo-Saxon castle built about 1799 by the Earl of Coventry for his wife.

There are three hexagonal floors, each a single room

with an impressive view.

The floor plan, a hexagon with towers

The view ranges across 12 or maybe 13 counties.

Crom Price, a long-term friend of the Morris family leased this tower for several years, providing hospitality in the summer.

The staircase

Morris's daughters enjoyed visiting and sleeping in the quirky rooms. May recalled:

"It was the most inconvenient and the most delightful place ever seen...At the bottom of the steep hill lay the silver-grey village and beyond was the blue land---miles and miles of lovely distance."

Morris Hexathon 17: Folly by Ilyse Moore

The pattern is BlockBase #272.8, published as Pinwheel by the Laura Wheeler/Alice Brooks syndicated newspaper columns of the 1930s.

It looks like there is a bend in the line at the edge of the pinwheel in BlockBase.

 I've redrawn that line as straight here.

The pattern company plopped an appliqued circle in the center in case you don't like how your  intersection of twelve seams worked out. Use a quarter coin for a template.

Pattern for an 8" Hexagon

(4" sides)

To Print:

• Create a word file or a new empty JPG file that is 8-1/2" x 11". 
• Click on the image above. 
• Right click on it and save it to your file. 
• Print that file out 8-1/2" x 11". The hexagon should measure 4" on the sides.
• Adjust the printed page size if necessary.
• Add seams when you cut the fabric.

Morris Hexathon 17: Folly by Ilyse Moore

Clockwise---counterclockwise: it doesn't matter which way it rotates.

One More Inspiration

Hexagon Sampler by Chris Jurd in the book Inspired By Vintage Quilts

Lowell's American Textile History Museum Has Closed

Lowell's American Textile History Museum Has Closed for financial reasons. The Museum was founded in 1960. For about sixty years they have been a primary source for ----well---American Textile History, particularly about the New England mills that printed so much of the fabric that found its way into quilts.

Read the sad news here: (It's not breaking news---they decided in June.)
http://www.athm.org/news/athm-seeks-to-close/

A few things we will miss:

Exhibitions

Homefront and Battlefield: Quilts & Context in the Civil War

Programming:
See a great day at this blog post:
http://fileunderfiber.blogspot.com/2011_10_01_archive.html

Collections:
http://chace.athm.org/singleDisplay.php?kv=70515

Mill books

I would guess they had more dated sample books than any library---at least

any library that was free and open to the public by appointment.

Other swatch libraries might charge you $500 to access them.

Fabric diaries

Photographs and documents about the American mills.

Morris Prints Quilt Show

AngelhouseQuilts on Instagram

Swoon pattern in Best of Morris/The Morris Jewels

A show of patchwork using the William Morris prints I've 

been doing with Moda over the past few years:

Bobbi Finley

A Four Patch Strip Quilt

Sewcharmed - Lucy Boston block

Robyn's Lucy Boston with Morris Modernized CFA Voysey fabric

Velina's version of Starry-Eyed. She's just laid her blocks out on the bed.

Veronica LovingtoSew--strips and squares

Miss Marker Quilts

Same border as Bobbi above

Dorte Rasmussen

Maureen G. from the Cotton On Quilters, Wanganui, New Zealand stitched the guild's BOM (my Threads of Memory stars) in William Morris prints.

If you are an Instagram poster try these tags to show off your stuff:
#williammorris
#barbarabrackman

Morris Hexagon 16: Hammersmith Terrace

Morris Hexagon 16: Hammersmith Terrace by Becky Brown

Hammersmith Terrace

Just two templates and only 19 pieces.

Hammersmith Terrace by Ilyse Moore

I named this week's hexie Hammersmith Terrace for the Georgian row house neighborhood which was the Morris family's London home after 1878.

They named their city house Kelmscott House after their country manor house. Both overlook the Thames. Their town home at 8 Hammersmith Terrace is now a private residence but the William Morris Society is located in the Kelmscott House Museum nearby in the old coach house at 26 Upper Mall.

In an 1890 portrait of "The Art Socialists of London," 

The Cosmopolitan Magazine described the house:

"Mr. Morris lives during the greater part of the year at Hammersmith, a suburb lying six or seven miles southwest of London. The Thames, which takes a southerly bend at Chelsea, flows northward again at Hammersmith, nestles on this northern curve before the river, again descending, flows by Chiswick. His home, called Kelmscott House, a plain, wide brick structure, evidently of no very recent date, overlooks the river, from which it is separated only by the road and bank. In the rear the house opens upon a large garden pleasantly shaded with trees."

The pattern of two pieces, a triangle and a hexagon, is one of the few hexagon blocks you see in the 19th century.

A silk table cover, about 1885

Red setting triangles about 1900

The recently revealed Cosmati floor at Westminster Cathedral

Hammersmith Terrace by Bettina Havig

The pattern was published at least twice in the 1930s. 

It's BlockBase #262.

Brilliant Star from Nancy Page

The syndicated Nancy Page column,

1934

Or Pointing Star

The Kansas City Star, 1936

Red triangles, about 1950

Pattern for an 8" Hexagon

(4" sides)

To Print:

• Create a word file or a new empty JPG file that is 8-1/2" x 11". 
• Click on the image above. 
• Right click on it and save it to your file. 
• Print that file out 8-1/2" x 11". The hexagon should measure 4" on the sides.
• Adjust the printed page size if necessary.
• Add seams when you cut the fabric.

You get a similar effect with a slightly different geometry

of three pieces below. The center is of diamonds rather than a hexagon and triangles.

Double the triangle to get the diamond template.

 BlockBase #263.3, the Hexagon Star from the Kansas City Star in 1940.

Hexagon Star by Mrs. H.D. Moore, Stevens County, 

Minnesota, last quarter 19th century.

 BlockBase #263, blocks set in a ring of long hexagons.

One More Inspiration

Fern's Through the Woods top, a variety of hexagonal blocks printed from Ink Lingo, a computer program with hundreds of hexagons.