Morris Meadow/EQ Design Challenge 2

 

Anita

Yesterday's post showed the overall winner I chose in the EQ Design Challenge with my current fabric collection for Moda.

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2023/08/morris-meadow-design-contest-winner.html

I considered several criteria for making a choice including Following the Rules (you were supposed to use only fabric from the line.) That gave me 42 choices.

Some of my categories: Visual Impact was important.

Kris's Mesmerized was a knock-out.

How were the Morris prints and colors incorporated? Some used the fabrics well with complicated designs. Others like Janet & Deni used very simple patchwork to show off the prints and solids.

Peg's spiky fans made good use of the fabric

and the pattern.

Deni, a modernist, stacked minimal patchwork design to good effect.

EQ makes it easy to alternate blocks or rotate them. I always enjoy the visual connections and secondary patterns when two or three blocks alternate and mesh well.

Latawnia's alternating blocks with a third in the middle is complicated.

That simpler border is the perfect finish

And it's fun to see the Morris fabrics combined into traditional patchwork designs.

Karen's variation on the classic curved patch.

The natural world was important to William Morris, offering inspiration to several designers.

Sharon's take on a classic floral.

Julie's applique plus piecing.

And because it was a contest using computer generated designs from EQ we have to consider the skill the entrants showed with the program. (Impressed me no end!) Doubt William Morris would be as impressed with digital technology.

Cici

Barb V.

The Electric Quilt Blog (doyoueq.com)

Morris Meadow Design Contest Winner

Photoshopping me in Janey Morris's hair and clothing from

a Rosetti portrait of her in our Spencer Museum. Sorry, Dante, Janey & Willie.

I was the judge but I roped a mythical William Morris into

the job too. Morris had strong opinions about design so I 

channeled his help with a hard decision. 

44 Entries

Click on the picture to see more details or better yet go to the EQ page:

Morris Meadow – Winner Announced! | The Electric Quilt Blog (doyoueq.com)

 EQ's rules were few: 

The quilt design must be original to the entrant.
The design must be drawn in an EQ product.

Fabric choices were confined to the Fabric of the Month: Morris Meadow Best of Morris.

His Arbutus has a simple repeat yet it appears quite complex.

Two layers of pattern include subtle leaves in the dark background here.

Arbutus is a Mediterranean tree sometimes called a Strawberry Tree.

Their rules left me and Willie with a lot of latitude. I considered his principles:

• Morris espoused tradition.
• He thought the product should be true to the material. 
• He was adamant about design echoing the natural world.
• He was a genius with pattern on a flat surface.
• He was opposed to industrialization (although I'd argue that industrialization gave craftspeople time to create rather than merely laboring daily to provide food and shelter.)

Me: I looked for: 

• Impact
• Clever pattern
• A nod to traditional design with a creative twist

I picked Anita Verstraete's as my winner. It has impact---would look good on a wall or a bed. Nice variety of value and colors. I have a bit of a bias but I like seeing large pieces of the prints as they are so lovely. (Remember, Willie did all that pattern design---I just color them in shades I hope he'd like.)

Anita says: "I purchased EQ8 one week ago and this challenge was a great way for me to learn how to use the quilt program and explore a palette of colours/fabrics that I wouldn’t ordinarily choose. I’m also very inspired by everyone’s designs."

As Susan commented: "I’m impressed you could put together such a beautiful quilt in such a short time to learn the product!"

I agree---I am nowhere as skillful with the capabilities of EQ as you designers are.

In the contest you are limited to the prints in the collection. As Pamela noted: "I do wish, though, there had been a plain orange." In real life you can add an orange to your designs. As blue's color complement it would be a good addition. 

There were 43 Runners Up.

More inspiration tomorrow.

An 1827 Ladies' Fair

American women's fundraising fairs for charity seem to have begun in

the 1820s and followed a certain format until the present time.

Washington author Margaret Bayard Smith described an early event in a letter to a friend December 21st, 1827: "Next week there is to be a Fair, for the benefit of the Orphan Asylum. Every female in the City, I believe, from the highest to the lowest has been at work for it."

Victoria & Albert Museum

18th-century doll 

Mrs. Lovel has been "begging for scraps and pieces of all kinds to dress dolls and make pincushions.

Victoria & Albert Museum

18th-century beaded pincushion 

"There are to be 30 tables arranged in a semi-circle at each of which is to preside one married and 2  young ladies, wearing some badge to distinguish them."

Margaret Bayard Smith (1778-1844)

Margaret who lived in the country had no idea about the planning going on in the capitol but when she arrived in town for the Christmas season she, "found the zeal that prevailed there quite contageous and my enthusiasm was immediately excited."

Washington City in the 1830s

She had no needlework or painting to donate but decided to print a novel she'd recently written and sell What is Gentility? at the benefit.

Published anonymously for the public in 1828

Redwood Library & Athenaeum

Margaret Eliza Mansfield Lovell (1795-1836)

Portrait by Charles Bird King

"Mrs. Lovel," who begged for scraps was probably Margaret Lovell, the Surgeon General's wife.

Missouri Historical Society

Booth at a fair raising money for Union soldiers during the Civil War.

Another early charity fair in Baltimore, March, 1827 raised money for Greek war victims.

Read more about ladies' fairs at this post:
http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-problems-with-ladies-fairs.html

Read Margaret Bayard Smith's letters: The First Forty Years of Washington Society:

https://books.google.com/books?id=efw0AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+first+forty+years+of+washington+society&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwimkry4_vL_AhW5ADQIHXdPDO8Q6AF6BAgHEAI#v=onepage&q&f=false

Phoebe's Favorite: Dogtooth Applique #2

 

Phoebe's Favorite #2 Bouquet by Becky Brown

Comfort magazine, a widely read woman's periodical in the early

20th century, published a design for "Bouquet." My 1-inch sketch gives you an idea of

the pattern.

Elsie Ridgley's Bouquet

A little William Morris fabric.

Bouquet by Denniele Bohannon

Pattern for dogtooth applique

Print the pattern sheets on an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet of paper.
Check the inch square for accuracy and adjust if necessary.
Each month you get two patterns for two techniques.

Pattern for conventional template applique

Notice that Becky shortened the green stems to

make the red florals touch, giving a more complex look to the finished block.

The design seems to have been popular in the red and green decades.

From a sampler recorded by the New York project & the Quilt Index.

Jeanne Arnieri's Bouquet

She is enjoying the dogtooth applique technique.

I don't have a clipping for the Comfort picture of Bouquet

but here is a similar pieced design.

They did some wacky designs---mostly reader contributions.

And on the topic of wacky.

Mystery Pattern: Spiderwoman?

 

The North Carolina quilt project recorded this

quilt attributed to 1959 and Maggie Hewitt of Chesapeake

County, Virginia.

https://quiltindex.org//view/?type=fullrec&kid=21-17-465

It's a well-balanced design. The project gave it the name 

Double Star Flower Variation---placing it in this rather

small category of 8-pointed stars with points in an unusual symmetry.

Encyclopedia of Pieced Patterns & BlockBase: #388x

Although it's not actually in there as a published pattern

I imported that first star above into EQ8, changed the corners and added pieces.

Voila! Except for those 8 seams meeting in the center it's a good design.

Wait a minute!

I can fix that with a little applique.

Here's the pattern for a 12" block with templates & rotary cutting for the triangles:

Spider Web Star

Print on an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet of paper. 

Check the inch square for accuracy and adjust if necessary.

Dots a good solution.