Happy Fourth of July!
I just returned from a long trip to Croatia, Slovenia and Budapest, and am still trying to figure out what time zone I’m in. As soon as I do, you’ll be the first to know.
from *here*
Category: Quilts
Some Interesting Circle Quilts
While looking through this blog, I found some examples of interesting circle quilts. This one, made by Kathleen H. McCrady and titled Sawtooth X, is patterned after an old one from 1875, using reproduction fabrics in brighter colorways.
This is kind of “circle-y,” but has added oak leaf appliqués in the corners.
(from *here*)
Known as the Georgetown Circle Quilt, its maker is unknown, but it was made in the era between 1900-1920.
(from *here*)
Here’s a modern variation of that Georgetown Circles quilt.
I found this one on my computer, with a date of 2005. It’s from Freddy Moran and I believe she calls it Airship Propeller. But I could be wrong about that title. Jenn Kingwell did a similar design, but turned her blocks on point:
(from *here*)
Lastly, when I lived in Washington DC, the Smithsonian Institution’s American History Museum had this sort of secret quilt tour, but if you knew about it, you’d call them up and a docent would take you in the back and open lots of archival drawers, showing you positively ancient quilts (some 250+ years old). It was amazing. In one drawer was this quilt with circles. This one looks challenging to piece, but I think easier if is English Paper Pieced. I’ll save this one for later in the series, once we’ve gotten our skill set up and going.
All this proves that our slow sewing, of making English paper pieced circle blocks is an idea that has come around again.
Contrasts: Four-in-Art August 2014 Challenge
from *here*
The theme for our August 1st Challenge Reveal is “Contrast.” Anne suggests the contrasts inherent in cities: noisy/quiet, man-made/natural, fast/slow, wealthy neighborhood/poor neighborhood. I have started thinking about this, but first, my interest is in the visual contrasts: dark/light, colorful/greyed, smooth/rough, thin/thick.
from *here*
The following images are snapshots from the New York Times Travel/Design Magazine: “T.”
2014 Yearly Theme: Urban • August 1st Challenge: Contrast
Quilts and Stitching in Art
Okay, I had a fun time in Washington, DC this spring once I realized I could play I Spy and look for quilts. I think this is a good game that I should keep playing, and if you have a picture of a quilt in art — whether it be in a painting or a photograph in a museum — send it over and when I get a slew, I’ll do a post.
Okay, this isn’t technically quilting, but it’s stitching. This is a detail of Mending, by Isabel Bishop and hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. She writes “I have noticed regular denizens of [Union] Square [in New York City] who, sitting on the benches or on the fountain, easting, sewing or rearranging their worldly good in paper bundles, seem to be leading the most private of lives, entirely oblivious to the public character of the place. The not-beautiful forms of the fountain seem. . . to make a throne for the old man sewing his trousers; he is billowing old overcoat [becomes] a robe.”
This is a needlepoint stitchery in the gallery of the Washington National Cathedral that honors the 100 Most Famous Americans, all who have a red needlepoint pillow on a chair. Of course I was drawn to this one, honoring Elias Howe, inventor of the modern-day sewing machine. We ALL owe him a debt.
Sondra Freckelton’s Harvest is one of her still lives that capture “the quiet beauty of domestic, often feminized objects — quilts, garden implements, house wares, and fresh produce gathered from her own garden in the . . . Catskill Mountains.” I don’t know about you, but I was interested that a Smithsonian label-writer plopped in that phrase of “domestic, often feminized objects” when discussing Freckelton’s watercolor. Don’t tell our male quilters this.
And I knew she wasn’t herself a quilter, for who of us would plop down vegetables on top of this gorgeous appliqué quilt?
Mary Fletcher was born in 1940 and died in 1922, but her fine hand-pieced hexie silk quilt now resides in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. We are all jealous!
I decided she had an amazing scrap bag to have so many beautiful silks to work with.
And lastly, Honore Sharrer’s Tribute to the American Working People, who employed the polyptych format of medieval paintings to pay homage to the working people of America.
And here’s the quilt–in the upper left panel: a lovely scalloped Dresden Plate.
