Past Perfect: Jo Morton

Rachel's Reel by Jo Morton

Few quiltmakers have had the influence that Jo Morton

has over the past twenty or thirty years.

Her take on traditional quilts...

Whether it's applique or piecework

has created a style.

She's published over 20 books

Jo's look: traditional primitive, to mix descriptions.

 

Two pieces from her repro fabric  line Gratitude

Jo's Shirtings in shops now

I think 2017's may be the last Jo's Little Women

as she has retired to some degree. The club was

quite a popular feature in many shops---and it still goes on.

On her blog she says she likes to create "small quilts with the charm of the antique, 'new quilts with vintage charm'.”

Prairie Flowers

James River Crossing

"Why I make small quilts---almost instant gratification."

Jo lives in Nebraska. She began quilting in 1979 and I met her soon after that. I remember her showing me a handful of small log cabin blocks and I was amazed at how she'd captured the look of antique patchwork. She's still at it.

Her blog:

http://jomortonquilts.com/jos_journal/

EPP Star Quilt Finished!

Earthly Paradise by Barbara Brackman, 2018

I recently finished a small quilt I made using

English Paper Piecing. It took over a year,

mainly because I had a hard time figuring out the shapes

I'd need to get a hexagon into a rectangle.

I could have gone on.....

Indianapolis Museum of Art

19,567 pieces

But I got this far.

I used small pieces from all the William Morris reproduction lines

I've done over the years, dividing them into lights and darks...

And mediums for the outside edge.

My papers had 1" sides.

Some inspiration below:

From the collection of the Missouri Historical Society

Albert Small from the Illinois State Museum

From the Rocky Mountain Quilt Shop

And here are a few by people who didn't worry about fitting the

whole thing into a rectangle (I learned it won't fit into a square the hard way.)

From the collection of the U.K.'s Quilters' Guild

Art Institute of Chicago Collection

From a Christies' Auction

See a post about traditional EPP techniques here:

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2018/03/epp-conventional-wisdom-wrong.html

Rocky Road to Kansas

Rocky Road to Kansas

A few days ago I did a post on contained crazy quilts. This star with four points is one of the common designs we see in the middle of the country about 1900.

So popular we put one on the cover of our book

Kansas Quilts & Quilters

We saw many in the Kansas project. It may have been popular in Kansas because of the name.

It's a variation of a string quilt or a crazy quilt, fashionable in the

years when crazy quilts were hot---1885-1910.

The Ladies Art Company published 2 variations of the pattern about 1890.

One showed it in a square (LAC #236) and called it Rocky Road to Kansas.

The other was shown an all over pattern without a square block.

LAC #219

They called this one Crazy Quilt.

I've got a couple of date-inscribed examples in the files.

1895-1904. 

 Mary Feldsend (?) 1897

Felicia O Law, 1897 Noble County, Ohio

It looks like Felicia had a Ladies Art Company pattern for #219.

 Mary Rosenbaum, 1895,

Nebraska Historical Society Collection

1904

From Laura Fisher's inventory, silks, no date.

  

Unknown source with crazy quilt stitching outlining the strings.

The only other name I've ever heard for the pattern is Lazy Gal, which I heard folklorist Laurel Horton mention once in a South Carolina source. Lazy Gal is another name for a string quilt.

From Buckboard Quilts inventory

If the points in the star are not pieced it's a kaleidoscope.

BlockBase has many variations on the basic structure.

Periwinkle???

Another way to look at the pattern

A little curve....

A few more undated examples in cotton.

Above, maybe 1880-1900

With sashing and cornerstones, maybe 1890-1910

More like the 1940s.

And you could always use striped fabric.