Spring Quilt Market 2018---Virtual Floating Booth

Well, we forgot to sign up for a booth rental for Quilt Market in Portland but I had an idea. No where in the Quilt Market rules do I see a prohibition on parade floats. So here's the plan for a virtual floating booth that we can ride up and down the aisles throwing out Tootsie Rolls as we float by.

We looked at a lot of vintage photos for ideas. What would get our point across---we sell quilt patterns in our Etsy shop. Sunflower Pattern Co-operative.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/499583790/

Floral concoctions probably not a good choice. 

Flowers would droop by Saturday afternoon.

or Friday night.

Sunflower wheels? Get it? Horse probably a bad choice.

Self-propelled might be better.

Civil War theme? We do sell a lot of Civil War repro patterns.

Here it is! 

Based on a float from the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.

We'll be up all night with papier-mâché and trying to keep the machine threaded. 

Look for us in the virtual aisles all weekend.

Index of American Design and Fabric

I have been looking through the amazing watercolors done during the Great Depression by artists hired by the WPA for the Index of American Design. I knew they'd painted quilts...

and many folk arts.

In the quilt references are paintings of cotton prints

like this one by Elbert Mowry.

Mowry was photographed painting the early quilt.

Here is Ellen Duncan's rendering of a wholecloth quilt on a couch

with a detail of the stripe.

By Catherine Fowler

But then I realized the artists were assigned to paint interesting fabric swatches too. I recognized the fabric in Fowler's painting as a fake patchwork print from about 1875.

A  photograph

Miria Lowry's chintz painting was quite familiar

It's on a bookcover that is on my desk.

Catharine Fowler painted a popular pillar print.

See a post here:

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-ridiculously-popular-pillar-print.html

Daniel Fletcher painted a wholecloth quilt of this eagle print

Esther Hansen's Mexican War commemorative

like this piece sold at Skinner Auctions

My favorite may be the yellow stripe with a bolt label

that says Fall River Fast Cottons (?)

Here's the home page of the National Gallery of Art with the images online.

Not to overwhelm you---but there are 18,169 images up there from the Index of American Design.

https://images.nga.gov/en/page/show_home_page.html

Summer Vacation Destination: Winterset Iowa

Victoria Findlay Wolfe has a retrospective exhibit until July 29th, 2018 at the 

Iowa Quilt Museum.

A couple of weeks ago Deb Rowden & I drove to Winterset, Iowa for a Saturday event covering the town with quilts, including the famous covered bridges of Madison County. You gotta go next spring when they do The Airing of the Quilts again.

Quilts on porches, quilts on covered bridges, quilts hanging on the court house.

But you also have to get to Winterset anytime because it is as apple pie as it gets.

Winterset, the capitol of Madison County, has a lot going for it. 

There is no better small town on the Great Plains...

For fans of architecture...

Fans of quilts....

Fans of Ben Franklin Stores & flat folds

(in this old photo you can see the J.C. Penney store, which is now the Iowa Quilt Museum)

And fans of brick & mortar quilt shops.

 Quilt Sampler magazine says Tony Jacobson's & Joyce Franklin's Piece Works Quilt Shop is one of the ten best shops, spring 2018.

https://www.facebook.com/pieceworksquiltshop/

....And fans of old movie theaters.

They serve real butter on the popcorn along with local wine & beer.

Winterset is near Des Moines, about 15 miles off Interstate 80.

Marianne Fons with her American Pie quilt

Now you might guess there is a certain dynamo behind

many of the good things in Winterset.

See what's playing at The Iowa tonight.

https://www.facebook.com/theiowatheater/

Rebecca Fons & mother

Read about the theater project.

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/entertainment/2017/06/08/iowa-theater-winterset/363747001/

See  the current show at the Iowa Quilt Museum: Playing with Purpose: A Victoria Findlay Wolfe Retrospective: 
http://iowaquiltmuseum.org/

Chintz Panels New & Old

Medallion Reproduction quilt by Georgann Eglinski

I'm packing for a week long retreat with 9 friends. We are bringing some chintz panels to make a group medallion that we may auction off for AQSG in the fall.

I'm bringing this panel from Collections for a Cause.

And a few older repros that I MAY find this week in those plastic tubs labeled chintz.

Wish I had this new Barnsley from Petra Prins. Maybe someone else will.

#15

Now you may wonder what the numbers are. Merikay Waldvogel has assigned a number to the chintz panels we see in antique American and British quilts.

She and I have started a blog just to post her information about panels. See it here:

https://chintzpanelquilt.blogspot.com/

#10

We won't have the new Di Ford repro of #10 to work with, 

because it won't even be in shops till August.

 But I am sure between us we can come up with a few.

Cynthia Collier's medallion with #28, the Jane Austen panel

Never bought #28; should have.

Levensboom

Another Dutch panel---no number (yet)

#30

Reproduced for the Quilt Museum in York UK

Of course, I shouldn't be allowed to go near a chintz panel. Here are six SIX unfinished chintz quilt tops that I photographed a few months ago. I decided I would start with the smallest and I have finished that one.

I didn't have enough panels so I made one

memorializing Queen Elizabeth's Jubilee a few years ago. (6 years ago)

Wendy Reed's little repro with panel #5.

http://theconstantquilter.blogspot.com/2018/03/

One we collaborated on a few years ago at a retreat.

The center doesn't have a number (yet) since it's an Indian palampore.