Baltimore Album Quilts - 7 x 7 set & Carrots

Detail Baltimore Album quilt. 

Made by members of the Hargest Family, 

Baltimore, Maryland, Dated 1845.

95" x 95" 

International Quilt Study Center & Museum. 

IQSCM #2005.022.0001.

This quilt is dedicated to Hannah and James Hargest who died in 1838 and 1843. 

Blocks are inscribed with family records including their children and grandchildren. Hannah Evans and James Hargest, born in England, emigrated to Baltimore early in the 19th century after their 1804 marriage. They lived in the Darley Hall neighborhood of Baltimore. His death notice listed him as a gardener.

I've been categorizing the BAQ's by their setting structure and this is the only one I have photos for that is 49 blocks set 7 x 7. It's  95" square so the blocks are relatively small. 

The Hargest quilt has no elaborate triple flowers or layered basket blocks. The major reason I'd include it in the BAQ category (besides it being from Baltimore in the 1840s) is the inclusion of the block we've been calling carrots for want of a better name. Fourteen Carrots (what does it mean???)

Is this the correct orientation?

Carrots grow like this.

Interesting that this block is in the quilt's central position.

Do notice the Turkey red dog tooth appliqued edge to each block.

This may be my favorite BAQ category (7x7) since there is only ONE quilt in it. I like to categorize but I am not looking forward to filing those dozens and dozens of 5x5 sets.

Read more about the quilt here at IQSC:
http://www.quiltstudy.org/exhibitions/online_exhibitions/whats_in_a_name/inscribed_quilts1.html

Here's the worksheet on this 7x7 category.

Barkley's Birds: Fat Quarters

The bird feeders are up and running.

It's indeed Fat Quarters around here.

Quite a few birds check in every day.

Neighbor Barkley spends his winter barking at them through the window...

Barkley's Birds, 68" x 84"

by Deb Rowden

A seasonal event Deb commemorated in a quilt.

Barkley's Birds is great for a project combining two current lines of Moda fabric. On the left Collections for a Cause: Nurture and on the right Alice's Scrapbag. 

Together you get a range of lights and darks. The scrappy blocks would be perfect for a dozen fat quarters from each line.

Alice's Scrapbag

Collections for a Cause: Nurture

A sketch of Barkley's Birds in the new fabrics.

8" Finished Block.

Birds in the Air

All the blocks are shaded the same. They are rotated in the set.

Karla Menaugh, Deb Rowden and I published the pattern for Barkley's Birds in our out-of-print book Cranberry Collection from the Sunflower Pattern Co-operative. The pattern called for 12 fat quarters of dark and 12 fat quarters of light for the pieced blocks. See this post for the applique quilts in the book:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2015/12/cranberry-collection-thinking-red-and.html

Karla did the pattern for this quilt and she had you cut your fat quarters efficiently. You need 48 blocks and this gives you a pair of darks or lights per fat quarter.

From each fat quarter, cut two 6-7/8" squares and 14 squares 2-7/8".  

Cut these squares in half diagonally for the large and small half-square triangles for each pieced block. 

Use the leftover rectangle at the bottom right for birds and leaves in the applique border. You can find the border pattern in the book (see it at my Etsy store below.)

The border is cut 10-1/2" wide from 2 yards of fabric.

You might want to border your version with the bird chintz print

from the Nurture line.

Cut side borders 10-1/2" x 64-1/2".

Cut top and bottom borders 10-1/2" x  68-1/2".

Cranberry Collection is out of print but we still have copies for sale in my Etsy shop. We'll sign them just for you.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/220238643/cranberry-collection-quilts-for?ref=shop_home_active_18

Rotation, Rotation, Rotation

Matisse and I collaborated on this Photoshop painting

"Too Late to Rip" See his painting at the bottom of the page.

Many errors in quilt patterning are rotation problems. Intricate designs often require that parts be rotated clockwise or counterclockwise.

This Indiana Puzzle or Snail's Trail is a design that requires

consistent rotation.

See a recent post here:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2015/11/quilt-wrecks.html

Ambitious plans...

Foiled again.

The Drunkard's Path is another challenge

in spatial relations.

I have a very poor sense of direction myself.

Stereocard photo from the 1850s

I remember being in first grade where the people in charge were always asking me about left and right, something I knew nothing about. To have a ready answer I wrote L on one white sneaker, R on the other with my new fountain pen.

Unfortunately I wrote the letters on the wrong shoes.

Back to rotation. If you don't have a good sense of spatial orientation I wouldn't take up the Indiana Puzzle or the Drunkard's Path.

Kentucky Quilt Project/Quilt Index

Or the Princess Feather.

In fact any kind of whirling applique can be problematic.

From the North Carolina Project and the Quilt Index

Henri Matisse, Woman Before a Fish Bowl, 1922.

Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago

Wild Oats Quilt Pattern for Old Cambridge Pike

Wild Oats from Miss Rosie's Quilt Company

Carrie Nelson at Miss Rosie's Quilt Co. has created an official pattern for my latest mid-19th-century reproduction fabric collection from Moda: Old Cambridge Pike.

Why Wild Oats?

The fabric line was inspired by the generation of New England intellectuals, widely remembered in Louisa May Alcott who lived near the Old Cambridge Pike in Concord, Massachusetts.

LMA's parents had rather radical ideas about education, diet

and society. Her father Bronson Alcott established a utopian

community farm called Fruitlands when Louisa was 10.

Fruitlands still stands as a museum

She recorded her memories of the experiment in vegan communal life

in a satirical article Transcendental Wild Oats, first published in 1873.

So the pattern is "Wild Oats."

You can buy the pattern now, but

the fabrics haven't been delivered yet.

Any day now.

AS OF DEC 11 THE PRECUTS HAVE BEEN SHIPPED!

While you're waiting you might want to read about the Alcotts.

"Transcendental Wild Oats" is included in the book Laurel Leaves: Original Poems, Stories, and Essays, edited by William Fearing Gill, which you can read at Google Books:

https://books.google.com

Search for 

Alcott Laurel Leaves

Two recent group biographies:

Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father by John Matteson.

Fruitlands: The Alcott Family and Their Search for Utopia by Richard Francis.

And you can visit Fruitlands:

http://www.fruitlands.org/visit

Fashion and Virtue in New York

Fashion and Virtue: Textile Patterns and the Print Revolution, 1520–1620

is an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan through January 10, 2016.

A Modelbuch from 1553.

A pattern book for needlework

from the beginnings of the era of printed books.

"This interdisciplinary exhibition, drawn largely from the Metropolitan Museum's own collection, combines printed pattern books, drawings, textile samples, costumes, paintings, and various other works of art to evoke the colorful world in which the Renaissance textile pattern books first emerged and functioned."

See more here:
http://metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2015/fashion-and-virtue

Detail of a print

Lucretia Instructing Her Daughters in Needlework,

1557

Notice the Modelbuch with the pattern.

Events scheduled for children and adults:

Sunday Studio: Light and Shadow Designs
Sunday, December 6, 1:00–4:00 p.m.
Free with Museum admission; admission is free for children under 12 with an adult.

Gallery Talk: Exhibition Tour 

Saturday, December 19, 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
Free with Museum admission

Studio Workshop: Textile Design with Ink and Thread
Sunday, January 10, 2016, 1:00–5:00 p.m.
Fee: $215 for the three-session workshop (includes Museum admission and materials)

View the objects in an online exhibit here:

http://metmuseum.org/exhibitions/objects?exhibitionId=%7bFCA3143B-1866-4D28-810D-1DD58F0D4EDB%7d&rpp=20&pg=1

Cranberry Collection: Thinking Red and Green

Cranberries and Cardinals by Jean Stanclift, 

Quilted by Lori Kukuk

24" Block

Jean found a well-worn masterpiece in an antique store and decided to preserve the quilt by copying it in updated fabrics. Several years ago we featured it on the cover of a holiday applique book from our Sunflower Pattern Co-operative.

Cranberries and Cardinals by Jean Stanclift

82" x 82" 

The design is unique, but we're familiar with the dramatic bloom bursting from the urn. It's often called Coxcombs. Are those delicate berries holly or cranberries, cherries or currants?

Coxcombs grow in all varieties.

Here are three vintage designs from about 1870-1900.

From an old Quilt Engagement Calendar, a West

Virginia quilt from Stella Rubin

“Christmas colors” is a rather modern idea, but we often look to these quilts for our Christmas inspiration. Nineteenth-century quiltmakers loved the palette we think of as Christmas colors. Their best applique quilts were usually made of red and green with a touch of gold for accent, although seasonal celebration was not a factor in their choices. Why they chose those shades is somewhat mysterious. Other dyes were just as color-fast, and the roses, tulips and coxcombs they depicted certainly blossomed in other shades. 

Abiding Joy by Karla Menaugh

90" x 90" Quilted by Lori Kukuk,

Karla's inspiration was also an antique quilt from about 1840-1865. 

The berries fit the block so gracefully.

This block was popular too. Names include Cockscombs and Currants, Poinsettia or Flowering Almond.

A more common version of the Poinsettia.

Looking for an applique challenge? Both patterns are featured in our booklet Cranberry Collection:

Quilts For Christmas or Any Season. It's out of print but you can find our last copies at my Etsy store.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/220238643/cranberry-collection-quilts-for