Austen Family Album

http://austenfamilyalbumquilt.blogspot.com/

I was born to blog. As my friend Deb says--- it's like having your own personal newspaper:

1. An audience---you!
2. No editors, so I can put commas wherever I like.
3. And it's a visual medium like a picture book.

I have started yet another blog (see the others over on the left) with a free quilt pattern---a block of the week for 36 weeks on the topic of Jane Austen's England, her family and friends.

I love to read about Regency England and I never seem to get bored reading Jane biographies. Does that make me a Janeite?

The pieced patterns for 12-inch blocks will be posted every Sunday for 36 weeks beginning with the first Sunday in April, 2014---April 6.

The project will be an album sampler, the kind of quilt popular in 19th-century America and again in the 21st century. We are not going to reproduce an authentic Regency-era quilt.

Sister's Choice

Given the name about 1890

Sister's Choice by Becky Brown

in my Ladies' Album reproductions for Moda

I've picked blocks from my BlockBase digital index to published patterns with names like Village Square, King's Crown and Sister's Choice---blocks designed and named long after the Austen era.

Each block reminds us of a real person in Jane's life.

Jane's Aunt Philadelphia

I've read Jane's novels too and there will be some references to those characters but my main interest is to tell stories about the family and relate them to the years 1770-1820 in England, especially for American readers who have been confused about what a living is, how much a guinea is worth and if an entail and a pelisse are a good thing or not.

I'm not an expert on Austen, England or the Regency so I'll give you links to other sites and books each week.

I've got my great team of stitchers----Becky Brown, Dustin Cecil and Georgann Eglinski--- testing patterns and choosing colors, and Bettina Havig is also making model blocks. If you've followed my other block-of-the-month and block-of-the-week blogs you know what wonderful things they do with fabric.

I've already started posting about color and fabric ideas so check it out.
http://austenfamilyalbumquilt.blogspot.com/

Jean Mitchell Quilts Spencer Museum

Virginia Jean Cox Mitchell, 

Rode to Phila. detail,

1987-1988

Here are detail photos of a patchwork piece by Jean Mitchell, being shown this spring in Personal Geometry, a two-artist exhibit in Lawrence, Kansas.

Rode to Phila., 88" x 97-1/2"

Jean Mitchell was inspired by the bi-centennial anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution to stitch this quilt honoring Philadelphia. Below the vase is a parade float pulled by a tiger celebrating the signing at the time.

Independence Hall in Philadelphia

She also honors painters Edward Hicks, John James

Audubon, leader Daniel Shays...

...And calico printer John Hewson.

The Hewson Vase above is filled with

flowers representing the 13 colonies.

Yankee Doodle (John Hewson?) with a feather in his cap,

riding a tiger and pulling the float.

Native American and William Penn

on the float.

The quilt, like several of her other pieces, is pieced, appliqued

and embroidered. This one is unquilted and bound.

Jean's incredible quilts are on exhibit at the Helen F. Spencer

Museum at the University of Kansas until

May 18. 

Sunrise, Sunset 

is an accessory to the Rode to Phila. quilt,

a pillow cover?

"It commemorates the signing of the U.S. Constitution and a story of Benjamin Franklin weeping when he signed it. At the time he was looking at a painted design on the back of George Washington's chair that depicted the sun; he wondered whether the sun was rising or setting."

See more about the exhibit here:

http://www.spencerart.ku.edu/exhibitions/

A Few Feathered Stars: Miscellaneous Centers

Online Auction

Late 19th-century

Once you've figured out the basic feathered star pattern

you can draft anything for the center square

May Louise Weeks

from the New Jersey Project at the Quilt Index

mid-19th-century

Four-Patches above

From the Nebraska History site

Victoria Caldwell, Rhea County, Tennessee

from the Quilts of Tennessee at the Quilt Index

mid-19th-century

A square in a square

Eliza Shields

from the Illinois project at the Quilt Index

This one's from Marie Webster's 1915 book labeled Feather Star

It has a 5x5 grid in the center.

Similar with a more complex center---the 5x5 grid

is cut into triangles

Sofia Noel

from the Quilts of Tennessee at the Quilt Index

Feathered center square in a Feathered Star above

You will notice many of these complex stars come from Tennessee where there seems to have been some real competition to create an interesting variation of the basic pattern.

Belle Specht,

from the Quilts of Tennessee at the Quilt Index

mid-19th-century

An Ohio Star above

Online Auction

From the LaConner Museum collection

Railroad Crossing in the center

Online Auction

Another Feather Star from the Illinois project

and the Illinois book History from the Heart. 

This one is a late-19th-century Civil War veterans' memorial.

I am not the first person to notice you

can put anything you want inside a feathered star---

Marsha McCloskey's been drafting patterns for quite a while.

Flourishes from the Ladies' Album

Here's a late-19th-century four-patch block.

The dark print was the inspiration for "Forget Me Not,"

a print in my Ladies's Album reproduction collection

from Moda.

"Forget Me Not" is available in three colorways:

Forever Green, Red Rose and Natural

"Sweet Sentiment" (see the enlarged detail) comes in five colors:

Natural, Forever Green, Tea Time, True Blue and Red Rose.

Many people added a flourish to their autograph in old album quilt blocks...

1855

perhaps a sprig,

1853

1848

1847

a rose,

or the whole branch.

Mid-19th-century culture required

a little drawing skill.

We tend to leave out the flourishes today because we fear our 

drawing and handwriting isn't

good enough.

Are our standards too high?

These homemade flourishes have a lot of charm.

The key, as any 19th-century handwriting teacher could tell you, is

Practice

Practice

Practice!

WINNERS!

I picked the first and last commenter. There were 520 comments when I woke up this morning and Deb G was the last. Rosemary Y the first.

 Deb and Rosemary: I've got your email addresses so I'll get your street addresses and ship you off some precuts of Ladies' Album.

The other 518---thanks for commenting. Great answers!

Mary Pickford

Sorry you didn't win here.

Check the other Moda designers' blogs to see if you are a winner.

Mark the boss and the quilt

Click here for the links:

http://modafabrics.blogspot.com/p/spell-it-with-fabric-designer-blog-hop.html