Barbara Brackman's MATERIAL CULTURE

Monday, March 16, 2026

Morris Muse: Jane Burden Morris

I have a new Moda line called Morris Muse, the latest in our "Best of Morris"

series of reproduction Arts & Craft prints. Bolts should be in your

shop this week.

Roseanne Smith's log cabin cut from strips of the Russet red colorway for centers.

See the prints here:

https://shop.modafabrics.com/collection?group=Morris%20Muse

Morris Muse celebrates the unsung women of craftsman design, artists in their own right, designing, stitching and overseeing masterpieces of Morris needlework. Despite late-century conventions that kept them behind the screens they stitched, women in Arts and Crafts circles were true design partners. Prints in the Morris Muse collection continue the Morris theme of nature-inspired patterns with rich reds and color complements echoing interior fashion and the women’s personal style.

Morris's prime Muse was his wife Jane Burden Morris,

Auburn-haired Jane looking wistful, a rather typical look

Painter Dante Gabriel Rosetti was obsessed with her face and form---

you'd probably look wistful too if you had to choose between Rosetti & Morris.

She really never did.

Jane and her fellow female Muses designed and stitched much embroidery for the firm. This bag by Jane from the late 1870s is in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum.
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O368440/bag-morris-jane-burden/

Over the spring we'll discuss other Morris Muses, show some period embroidery and new quilt patterns perfect for this fabric line.

We've cut a kit from Morris Muse for Modernly Morgan's "Same Sky,"

should be in shops momentarily.

Pattern for a simple quilt making the most of the reds & greens in

Morris Muse.

See a post with state birds and flowers drawn in my new EQ8

Add-on Quilt Journeys here:

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2026/02/quilt-journeys-bird-borders.html

Border design for embroidery or applique drawn from the print at the top of the page.

Print this pattern on an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet

for a border strip finishing to 24" x 4".

Read More:

Debra N. Mancoff, Jane Morris: The Pre-Raphaelite Model of Beauty

Wendy Parkins, Jane Morris: The Burden of History

Preview here:

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Jane_Morris/M1GrBgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

Wednesday, March 11, 2026

Neighborhood

Quilt feature writer Ruth Finley apparently was not fond of house quilts.

Top, about 1900-1925

Some of us, however, are always glad to come across a neighborhood with

distinguished architectural style.

Such as this one with embroidered names.

It looks like the maker used a pattern similar to one from Capper's Weekly

called Abe Lincoln's Log Cabin.

From Old Hope Antiques

"Similar" seems to be the principle here in drawing up

house plans.

Everybody wants to express themselves in their home design, I guess.

From the late Laura Fisher's inventory

Houses with the striped logs may be my favorite---horizontal

logs or vertical.

About 1900-1925

After looking at architecture I saw logs, roofs and doors in this

quilt recorded by the North Carolina project.

Attributed to Mary Simpson Garrett (1841-1916) of Edenton, Chowan County, North Carolina

https://quiltindex.org//view/?type=fullrec&kid=21-17-1492

It's actually a combination string/crazy quilt

alternating horizontal strips of stripes with strips of angled shapes.

But it COULD be a house quilt....

Rectangular blocks--- 16" wide, 12" tall

80" wide x 60" without a border

Thursday, March 5, 2026

State Birds & Flowers Embroidery

Quail and Poppies For California from

Aunt Martha

Karl is holding up Roseanne Smith's State Birds & Flowers embroidered quilt at the Kaw Valley Quilt Guild meeting in February. It's heavy. She used a sheet for the backing many years ago.

During the Bicentennial Celebration of 1976 the blocks were embroidered by her mother Lucy Smith

who was born in Australia and came to the U.S. after marrying a soldier in World War II.

A lot of embroidery stitches in the backgrounds

Roseanne who'd made two quilts back then volunteered to put it together. A group in their hometown Phillipsburg, Kansas quilted it and didn't complain about hand quilting through the sheet.

I volunteered to find the pattern source. Is there an index to embroidered state birds, flowers, etc.?

There is now. My best reference was Rose Marie Werner's article in AQSG's Blanket Statements newsletter #95.

See a PDF here:

https://kora.quiltindex.org/files/35-90-478/095_2009_Spring.pdf

The INDEX

ALICE BROOKS: (1970s) For the Bicentennial anniversary in the mid 1970s

birds & flowers in a curved ribbon.

ANNE CABOT: (After 1959) New states Alaska & Hawaii in border

AUNT MARTHA/Colonial Patterns: (1930s) Scroll behind flowers and birds.

CAPPER'S/ KATE MARCHBANKS : (1970s) From this Topeka, Kansas source---rectangular blocks with much information and a U.S. map along with other patterns for birds and flowers. The 50-State

Educational Quilt seems to be where Lucy Smith found her patterns.

Roseanne's mother lived a couple of hundred miles northwest of Topeka where she would have had access to the Capper's needlework designs either with her own subscriptions to their publications or she may have received clippings from her many nursing patients.

LAURA WHEELER (Old Chelsea Station): (1960s)

Shield with flowers and the state name

Do note different florals at the top of the shield---some 3; some 1.

MCKIM: Ruby McKim's designs are easily recognized

by stylized initials for the state name.

UPDATE: OMAHA WORLD HERALD:

Louise Tiemann added a 1938 series from the Omaha newspaper's columns under the byline

Nadine Bradley who was "Director of Household Arts." Rectangular pattern drawings were signed M. Lieb for Merriam Lieb, the paper's artist.

RAINBOW: Both Flowers & Birds with

old state abbreviations of 4 letters.

VER MEHREN: Hubert Ver Mehren's flower design with his

signature innovative modern border

Rose Marie wondered if this bird series is also from his Des Moines studio.

VOGART: Rose Marie did not include information

about this company that went bankrupt in 1990.

Florals & Birds captioned with the state's full name in capitals.

WORKBASKET: This spinoff from Aunt Martha/Colonial Patterns labeled the blocks with a rather elaborate floral scroll.

UNKNOWN: Did not find a source for this state flowers design with a crinkly ribbon. Must be after 1959 as Hawaii is included.

From the Arizona Project

Back to the Capper's/Kate Marchbanks pattern that included the date and order of the state's entry into the Union. They also published the "50-State Educational Quilt" with hexagonal blocks. Again the overall set was rather vague, which encouraged some creativity.