QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Saturday, August 31, 2019

Daredevils #5: Pancho's Garden

 
Daredevils #5: Pancho's Garden
Scroll down to see the two-page pattern for a 15" finished block.

Friendship Garden by Dorrie Emmer....
It looks like she followed the OFFICIAL pattern.

Becky Brown's block altered a bit.
Scroll down to see what her real block looks like.

Denniele Bohannon's block with future appliqued circles
drawn in.

BlockBase #3597

Another Laura Wheeler pattern, Friendship Garden, was the inspiration for the Daredevil series of blocks. I took that basic structure and adapted it to other blocks in EQ8.

Many quiltmakers took on the challenge in the 1930-1970 years.
 Here’s one with a lavender dot—-maybe from the 1940s-’50s.

The Block


Daredevils pattern for a 15" block.
Cut paper templates. Add seams to the fabric.
Below the center template D.

How 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 small square should measure 1"
Adjust the printed page size if necessary.


Pancho Barnes
Our spokesmodel

See more about Florence Lowe Barnes here:

Becky Brown's actual block 
She added seams to that empty center, which is now a four patch.

Typical OCS newspaper clipping, this one from the Pottstown Mercury

I didn't realize this Quilt Along was going to be a Laura Wheeler fest.

The designers were clever and the company was quite prolific.

They definitely suggested some daredevil piecing. As Teddy P said in a block identification discussion:
"If it’s a nightmare to piece you can suspect Laura Wheeler. I often think that designer just drew segments that looked interesting but she had no clue how the sewing was done."
A starched Margaret Hamilton

Or perhaps the fictional Laura thought
you might learn something by taking on a challenge.

Georgia Broadwick preparing to parachute.
Notice ballet slippers

Our Facebook Group: DaredevilsQuiltAlong.
Ask to join whether you are sewing along or standing on the ground watching.

Thursday, August 29, 2019

Past Perfect: Carol Hopkins

Nanette Chopin Cook's version of  Carol Hopkins's Enduring Love
See Nanette's blog here:

This month's Past Perfect quilt designer is Carol Hopkins.

Enduring Love from Carol's pattern line Civil War Legacies.-

Carol Hopkins

Quilt Market fun includes a look in Carol Hopkins's booth to see what she is up to. She consistently produces authentic patterns for reproduction-style quilts using 18th- & 19th reproduction prints. Carol Hopkins Designs has a Civil War Legacies pattern line of mid-19th century designs and a Vintage Legacies line of other dates.

Faded Roses

She shares her love of "old-looking fabrics" and "soft, faded colors" with these stand-alone patterns and quilt books from her home in West Lafayette, Indiana. She's been quilting since 1980 before the mills were doing much in the way of reproduction coloring.
"I relished the challenge of finding fabrics that looked old. I remember the day that I bought 6 yards of a cream colored fabric with a tiny black motif because it looked like a shirting fabric, something that just didn’t exist in the marketplace. And when I found a pink fabric that looked like some of the cinnamon pinks I’d seen in old quilts, I wanted the entire bolt so that I could reproduce those wonderful turn-of-the-century scrap quilts."
Carly's Star
  
Southern Belle

Give & Take

Most of the quilts she makes herself are small, but the designs are easily adaptable to larger formats.

Mama Sara


Baskets for Betsy

Bonnet Ties

Her sixth book was published recently by Martingale Press.

Vintage Legacies focuses more on larger quilts

See a preview with lots more pictures here:


http://www.carolhopkinsdesigns.com/patterns.htm
Patriotic Logs


We've got two months till Quilt Market. I wonder what she's plotting.

Here's her webpage:
http://www.carolhopkinsdesigns.com/patterns.htm

Monday, August 26, 2019

Presidents' Toile: Two Editions



You'd know this guy anywhere....

George Washington, First President of the United States

And this man with a curl on his forehead.

Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President

The man with the curly wig

John Adams, President Number 2

Carol's hexagon quilt has been cut from a textile of the 1820s....


A French toile printed in 1827 with the six American presidents to that date: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe and John Quincy Adams.


The inscription: Les Presidents Des Etats-Unis (The Presidents of the United States)

Hexagons cut from the eagle and the letters ETA from the word ETATS.

The Shelburne Museum has a wholecloth quilt
made from the toile, which is roller-printed to look
like copperplate style. The bright blue dye is probably Prussian blue.

The repeat here shows the eagle surrounded by the politicians
among the clouds.

We assume the printer was French. Certainly Americans did not have the technology or skill to print such a piece domestically in 1827. 

Collins showed this one with a portrait of the 
seventh president and dated it to 1829.

Herbert Ridgway Collins pictured another  piece from the Cornell University Archives in his 1979 catalog of political textiles Threads of History  and tells us there was an earlier French version but doesn't show it...one reason I did a digital search to try to figure out which Carol's was cut from.

1827 was a Presidential election year with a rematch between President John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson whom Adams had beaten in 1823. Jackson was the winner of the second round and at some point the toile's design was reworked for the second version. 

From Jeff Bridgman's inventory.
It measures 25 inches across

The six presidential portraits remained but prominent among them was
an oval featuring Jackson.

The words in English:

"Andrew Jackson/ Magnanimous in Peace/ Victorious in War/ 
President of the United States from March 4th 1829 To //
Supreme Commander of the Army & Navy."

Jackson was promoted as a hero of the War of 1812.

During one of the Adams-Jackson campaigns these pasteboard
boxes were sold.


The eagle was re-used but the French words were eliminated and the bird is off to the side of Jackson. For balance a ship (Collins called it a frigate) has been added.

Perhaps the U.S.S. Constitution, another hero of the War of 1812.

An 1803 print on paper
Frigates were built for speed and sailing ease 


The Jackson print was offered in at least four colorways.
The Winterthur Museum has this piece in a dark red, a window drape stitched 
in the mid-20th-century from antique yardage.

They also have a wholecloth quilt in a plum/purple color. The
fabric must have been abundant in the early 20th century when
DuPont was collecting for his period rooms.

Their catalog notes on one pieces:
"This fabric was printed in Alsace, France c. 1829."

A strip quilt alternating the blue with either a faded red or a pink colorway.


Sold at auction

The Brooklyn Museum's quilt in a brown colorway

The date on the second piece is assumed to be 1828 or 1829; perhaps it was printed to be sold for Jackson's 1829 inauguration but Jackson served two terms, replaced in 1837 by Martin Van Buren.
In theory the print may date sometime between his 1828 campaign and the date when he was no longer President.

Above Quincy Adams, Washington, Monroe and Adams

The New Jersey project recorded a quilt inherited by a collector.

Medallion with presidential portraits in the center

All of the first six are in the meallion. Perhaps the maker was Anti-Jackson but it may be that she cut those portraits from the first edition of the presidential toile. It looks like they are trimmed closely and then appliqued to white. No clouds.




Back to Carols's hexagon. Here's Madison. 


The French words indicate hers is cut from the first printing (sans Jackson). The pieces found
online are all blue but hers is evidence that  Les Presidents Des Etats-Unis was also printed in a brown colorway.

See a long ago post on the Adams-Jackson campaign boxes: