Computer Aided Drawing: My Pasttime

 

Rather than wailing I've decided lately to spend pleasant time that some psychologists call "Flow." I've picked a couple of things I enjoy doing---the kind of activity that occupies your whole brain and when you look up at the clock you realize 3 hours have gone by.

For me one of those activities is improving my Photoshop skills. I want to get more of the drawing decisions into automatic mode versus higher cognitive choices. Difference between driving a car and doing a crossword puzzle.

And as Malcolm Gladwell tells us it takes thousands of hours to get really good at something.  I have been racking up the hours lately---With a goal of writing a book/computer program of applique options that one could just pop into a composition. Maybe.

I've never been good at drawing 6-pointed flowers----they don't fit easily into a square so for the past week I've been working on that challenge. I've got three cheat sheets now where I can pop the florals into a pattern.

And I'll share them with you.

If you have computer drawing skills you may find them useful.

If you can cut and paste paper---ditto.

Print these 3 sheets on 8-1/2 x 11" paper or save the jpgs and pop the images into any ideas you have.

Looking for ideas?

I don't have a lot of 19th-century images with six-pointed florals.  As I say they are rather hard to draw.

But in the 1920s modern quilt designers liked the look.

Modern Priscilla's 1925 Horn of Plenty

Paragon did a simpler version.

I'll try drawing this 19th century example.

Florals based on six---19th century.

Tattered & torn but inspiration

Redrawn!

Chester County History Center

 

Eagle quilt top donated by Msry P Way (Satterthwaite?) with

dates 1868 and 1933

Here is a sale with the possessions of Mary P Way in 1951 when this quilt was donated. One wishes one could time travel to the sale and see if this is among the "linens of all kinds." There are a couple of possibilities for a Mary P. Way but how she obtained this top is unknown.  Did she make it? Inherit it? Buy it at another "vendue" as they called sales in Pennsylvania.

Almost as much fun as shopping at Mary's sale 70 years ago is checking out the catalog of quilts at the Chester County History Center. They have an exemplary catalog. Chester was an important county in the development of the American quilts. Check out the catalog here:

https://mycchc.catalogaccess.com/search?search=quilt&includedFields=Objects%2CPhotos%2CLibrary%2CArchives%2CPeople&page=1&size=10&withImages=false

The museum has an equally exemplary exhibit up until through March 2, 2025 in West Chester.

Album made for Daniel & Mary A. Ubil, mid 19th c.

Curator Ellen Endslow is going to do an online lecture on their collection on December 3.

Here's her book of their quilts too.

Layers Unfolding: The Stories of Chester County Quilts (ed. E. Endslow)West Chester, PA: Chester County Historical Society.

Pomegranate Applique

 

Kentucky Paw-Paw by Elsie Ridgley

Over at the CivilWarQuilts blog we are doing a Kentucky Classic applique sampler this year. The blocks for the BOM come from some mid-19th-century Kentucky quilts and those Kentuckians seem to have been fond of Pomegranate imagery---did they grow pomegranates in 19th-century Kentucky?

BillieJo Rondi Lesley's purple palette.

I'm calling them paw-paws in Kentucky.

A Rose tree

Elsie's William Morris prints

Becky Brown went off on her own tangent...

See posts with the free patterns for Kentucky Classic here:

https://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2024/10/links-for-kentucky-classic.html

I thought I'd look around for more Pomegranate designs. I found many ways to arrange and set the fruit blocks.

Kansas Museum of History

Top by Mary Jane Scruggs of Nicodemus, Kansas last quarter 19th c.

Tennessee project & the Quilt Index

Michigan State University/Cuesta Benberry Collection

For Hattie Dorsey Moore by her sister Mary Stanford, 1876

Denver Art Museum/probably Kentucky

Fons & Porter Collection, dated inscribed 1860

But surprisingly little variety in the fruit itself.

You can add a couple of flourishes 

but it's generally two layers or three.

Round or squat.

The major creativity is in the "top-knots."

A design transferred to quilts straight from German-American traditional arts.

https://encyclopediaquiltpatterns.blogspot.com/2019/04/hospital-sketches-block-3-love-apple.html 

Color Trends

 

I didn't go to Market but I do enjoy pirating pictures to

see what the trends are.

Here's a short virtual tour.

Lots of samplers

Interesting to see how many featured houses....sign of the times

when a little homey shelter is called for?

Cute--- as usual--- is a mainstay.

What about color?

White or close to it is everybody's go-to neutral.

Poppie Cotton gift to founders

Island Batik

Tipsy Needle

Tula Pink

With exceptions.