DECEMBER 22, 2016
As I have been looking for antique quilts to highlight this year I am again reminded of the debt we owe to quilt scholars, quilt collectors and to museums for preserving our quilting history. This quilt was collected by quilt historian Cuesta Benberry. Quoting from the Great Lakes Quilt Centre website, this is what she said:
“I purchased this unusual quilt from Dick and Suellen Meyer in Crever Couer, Missouri. With its bright antimony orange background, and four block setting (each block approximately one yard square), it bears a strong resemblance to a Pennsylvania-Dutch work.”
I whole heartedly agree with her on the resemblance. It also reminds me of candy canes! (I have Christmas brain right now!)
This quilter, like many other quilters whose work we have seen during this floral quilt celebration, was independent minded in her approach to her design. Of the centre pinwheels, one has 11 red swirls, the rest have 9, and the centre swirl motifs all finish at different diameters. The flowers are similar but not exact. These are design elements that I find charming. An unusual four block design, it is bold and engaging, drawing the eye in and around. This visual movement is partly because of the movement of the stems, but also because she employed a light hand when deciding on the size of leaves, how many of them she was going to include, as well as their placement. Her decision to have ample “negative” space in relation to the motifs keeps the quilt from being too “busy” or visually overwhelming.
Cuesta was one of the early pioneers in quilt study. What started as an eagerness in studying patterns and block names grew to her amassing a phenomenally extensive collection of quilt pattern ephemera and to ground breaking research on the history of African American quiltmaking.
You can find more about Cuesta and her work at the following links:
The
Cuesta Benberry Quilt Research Collections at GLQC/MSU
Karen B. Alexander’s
“Remembering Cuesta”
Articles from the
New York Times and the
Washington Post
And an exhibition of her quilts is on until February 28th, 2017 at the
DuSable Museum in Chicago
Thank you Cuesta! We modern day quilters are indebted to you.
DECEMBER 21, 2016
So I thought it was time for a Canadian entry into this celebration of floral quilts. I have 7 books that focus on antique Canadian quilts and I searched multiple online Canadian sources and do you know what I found out? Apparently there is an exceptionally strong representation of geometric style quilts (squares, stars, triangles, etc.) in these sources and a very low representation of floral quilts. I know we have them, but apparently at the moment they are hard to find. If you know of a collection with lots of Canadian made floral themed quilts, please let us all know in the comments below.
This lovely quilt grabbed my attention the minute I saw it! The colours are vivid, it’s ** ahem** tulips (you do remember that I said there might be another tulip quilt, don’t you!), and it has that fabulous liberated border (now that is a way to resolve not having to deal with the whole turning the corner with the vine issue). It has a thin batt and is lightly quilted, apparently in red thread.
I love it. All of it. And it is kind of neat that this quilt is now part of the collection at “the village” where I worked as a teenager and learned how to quilt!
I have to admit I am tempted to make up a block.
DECEMBER 20, 2016
Sunflower Quilt, Caroline M. Carpenter, late 19th century, 78″ x 85″, cotton, Shelburne Museum.
There are some quilts that are so familiar to me that I forget that not everyone knows about them. Maybe you know this quilt or maybe this is the first time you are learning about it. For me, it is a pleasure to look at this quilt every time I see it! Bold and graphic it is also imbued with a soothing visual flow.
It is posited that Carrie, as she was known to her family, was likely influenced by the English Arts and Crafts Movement. She was so careful in her consideration of elements and their placement when she made this quilt, faithfully maintaining the rhythm of pattern without being a slave to it. Each flower is just a bit different from the others and this is what gives the quilt visual interest and movement. She carefully designed the quilt with the actual four poster bed in mind, planning where the stems and flowers would fall. The two long, external stems would have fallen right on the top edge of the mattress. Can’t you just envision it on the bed? The main stems are stuffed to a chunky fullness imitating the strong stems of these hearty plants. Finely quilted in a chevron pattern, she also quilted small flowers into the crooks of smaller flower stems and she quilted veins on the leaves. Sigh!
A work to be proud of for sure. And she was. She inscribed her name on the back.
Thank you Carrie.
DECEMBER 19, 2016
Shenandoah Valley Botanical Album Quilt, Esther B. Matthews, 1858, 96.5″ x 96.5″, cotton, Virginia Quilt Museum
Made in 1858 by Esther B. Matthews, when she was 82 years of age, her quilt is a beautiful interpretation of the flowers that grew near her home in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia. It is also filled with many of her sentiments about the coming conflict of the Civil War. She made the quilt for her grandson Addison Blair Martz. Addison, who served as a Confederate soldier, unfortunately died in 1863 from wounds suffered in battle. Never used, it is in excellent condition and was donated to the museum in 2006. How fortunate we are that so much is know about the maker and that the family valued the quilt, preserving it and it’s story and eventually donating it to the museum. You can find out more about the quilt and it’s history here.
I am in awe of the details in each of the individual blocks and am torn between the lily, mountain laurel and star in the east as to which one is my favourite. Esther clearly had an artistic eye. It is not just the pleasing composition and layout of the quilt, but the details in each of the floral compositions and her ability to interpret depth in her work through layering. It is a wonderful light contrast to day four’s album quilt.
The museum has issued a pattern for this quilt and some quilters have been participating in a quilt-along (you can see their progress here on their blog). Are you tempted to join them? If you were going to make just one block which one would you choose?
DECEMBER 18, 2016
While technically not a quilt (it is lacking a layer of batting and only the border is lined), this fabulous example of borderie perse just had to make it into the line up of quilts this year. Borderie perse was a technique popular at the end of the 18th century and into the early part of the 19th century. Different floral motifs were cut from roller printed chintz, carefully arranged to create new designs and either appliquéd with a needleturn technique or with a fine buttonhole stitch around the motifs to a ground fabric. And there are many examples where borderie perse has been used as part of or as the whole design on quilts.
Both yesterday’s quilt, and today’s, are very large works, and this one was likely worked on one large piece of ground fabric, so you can imagine the effort it took to handle the piece as she was working. Ashcan Goodwin was the daughter of a wealthy Baltimore merchant. The museum has wonderful provenance on this quilt including notes on Achsah written by her daughter:
“My mother [Achsah] was a very superior woman, possessing strong sense, sound judgment, great dignity, remarkably self-possessed . . . . She suffered from cutaneous disease . . . most frequently [she] beguiled her weary hours of sickness by designing and laying out fancy spreads in which she displayed beautiful taste.”
A wonderful large flower motif is created through the placement of elements to form floral garlands that in turn surround a central motif. The overall design is a testament to her exquisite taste and sense of aesthetic. The delicate little bouquets that are set at the inner intersection of each of the “petals” add just the necessary touch to elevate the sophistication of her design. Take them away and you miss them. That’s the sign that they are needed!
