Thursday, September 29, 2016

Pinterest: A Love Hate Relationship


Pinterest was driving me crazy. I use Google Images Search quite a bit and when you search for an image--- say the above search for "Chrome Orange Quilts" the majority of your hits will be Pinterest pages.

Looking at Pinterest pages is looking at secondary sources or tertiary sources. You just see pictures that people have saved to their boards like the one below for Red and White Quilts. And usually it's a re-pin of a re-pin. No information.

And you have to sign up to see the pictures.



No sources---just pictures with a small caption

It took me a long time to figure out that if you click on the picture and then once it's up there...

You click on it again it will sometimes take you to the source.

Which can be useful.

But still -


I don't see why I have to comb through everyone in the world's Pinterest pages to find a picture that hasn't been pinned and repinned etc.

Then one day I said to myself there must be a way to avoid a specific website in a search.



There is. And it's pinned in a sticky note to my computer.

Search: Chrome Orange Quilt -site:pinterest.com
The way to avoid the Pinterest hits:
[space]-site:pinterest.com

Of course if you are sick of me you could type in

Chrome Orange Quilt -site:barbarabrackman.blogspot.com

You would get pictures of chrome orange quilts with none from my blog.

So now you know how to hate Pinterest.

But while I was trying to figure out how to never see another Pinterest page I realized that rather than fighting them I should join them. 


If Pinterest is the first thing that comes up when you do a Google image search maybe I should have a few Pinterest pages.

So now I love Pinterest.

I use it as a cloud - a place to park stuff that is public.

Like free quilt patterns from my blog:

A page of quilts with a Civil War connection:


Inspiration for fans of William Morris fabrics:

Here are some other links to fabric history:




Click on my Photoshopped face to see all these boards.


I love Pinterest.

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Raffle Quilts

Valley Quilt Guild, Yuba City, California

Work avoidance suggestion:
Do a web search for words 2016 Raffle Quilt or 2017 Opportunity Quilt.

Sonoma County Guild
Judy Niemeyer pattern Glacier Star

Las Colcheras Guild

Q.U.I.L.T. guild

Valley Heritage Guild
Piece of Cake design with border by Holly Casey

Clamshell Guild

Eudora Quilt Guild

Folsom Quilt Guild

Illinois Quilters

Kansas Capital Quilters 2012 quilt

South Bay Guild
Louella Fournell and Pam Overton

Lynnore Meyer for River Quilters

Mother Lode build
Sedona Star pattern by Sarah Vedeler

Mountain Top quilters

Oroville Piecemakers

Quilting in Paradise guild

Margaret Cormack designed the Brownstone guild's quilt

Rio Grande Guild
Judy Martin pattern Shakespeare in the Park

Chestnut & Vine
South County Museum, Narragansett Rhode Island

Saturday, September 24, 2016

Morris Hexathon 21: Queen Square

Morris Hexathon 21: Queen Square by Becky Brown

I named this week's hexie Queen Square for a Morris home in London's Bloomsbury neighborhood. In 1865 the young Morris family moved their residence and workshop here, combining the two in a building at 26 Queen Square.

Selvage from fabric printed at 26 Queen Square
The firm and home remained together for over a decade.

 American author Henry James visited a few years later: 
"Morris lives on the same premises as his shop, in Queen Square, Bloomsbury, an antiquated ex-fashionable region, smelling strong of the last century."
Daughter May remembered growing up there among the crafts workspaces:
"The glass painting pleased me the most of all the different things that went on there: the jewel-like colours of the glass that lay about were so attractive, and the silvery net-work of the leading."

26 Queen Square by Amédée Forestier
published in 
William Morris: His Homes & Haunts in 1909.

Walter Crane gives us an impression of Queen Square and it's distinguished tenant about 1870:
"The first time I saw William Morris was from a window in Queen Square...We were leaning out of the open window one summer's evening, chatting, and watching the people passing to and fro across the quiet stone-paved square (which always had a retired old-world and rather Continental look at the south end) when we caught sight of a sturdy figure clad in snuff-brown, striding along in a determined manner, with an oak stick in his hand and a soft felt hat on. ...We met quick, penetrating eyes set in a handsome face and a fair beard with grave and abstracted look..."

The buildings on the Morris's side of the square were knocked down, replaced by a hospital in 1885.

Morris Hexathon 21: Queen Square by Bettina Havig
24 diamonds; 6 triangles.

Block 21 by Ilyse Moore

This week's hexie block has no BlockBase number as a hexagon,
but as a square block it's #3708 Columbia Star.


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

A late-19th-century version found in the Rhode Island
project. Photo from the Quilt Index.

One dated 1956 by Lila Dunn, Nebraska project. Quilt Index

The Brown Collection of Amish quilts has this
ca. 1920 example.

The repeat is difficult to show. Pattern vendors tried to fit the pattern into a square but that really doesn't work well.
The Ladies Art Company published a vague pattern for The Columbia.

The Nancy Page newspaper column 
called it Building Block.

Collection Spencer Museum of Art
Carrie Hall appliqued the cubes.

The names Columbia Star and The Columbia probably refer to the 400th anniversary of Christopher
Columbus's voyage to the Americas, celebrated in 1893 with a Columbian Exposition in Chicago.


Same pattern, different shading.

An example from the 1940s or '50s, appliqued because she couldn't figure
out how to piece it into a square.

Read daughter May's memories of Queen Square at Google Books:

One Last Inspiration


Crayon Box by Jinny Beyer

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Vine Tapestry & A Label for Your Morris Quilt

Here is a free label for your quilt made with Morris Earthly Paradise prints.
Print it out on pretreated fabric


The artwork comes from a catalog that included printed and woven fabrics
from Morris and Company. It dates from about 1910.

The black and white pictures included several "hand-woven tapestries".


Vine, a woven wool, was advertised as "Designed by William Morris"
but since he had died about 15 years earlier
and the firm was fairly loose with its attributions, I am not so sure.

Block 1 from the Morris Hexathon by Becky Brown

For Morris Earthly Paradise we colored the black and white photo
into a lovely serpentine stripe print.



It comes in four colorways.

Becky # 7
Which Becky, Ilyse & Bettina have been making the most of for the Morris Hexathon

Bettina #5

Ilyse #7