Making Vintage Quilts

There is no doubting that winter is here, from coast to coast. And with that comes staying in doors if you can and enjoying the cozy feel. I love the sound of rain drops falling on the skylights. Listening to the rain fall is so rare, I sit or work in silence while it is happening to take the sound and sensation it in when I can. But after a week of fairly non-stop raining and dreary skies I want color back, not to mention the sun and warm temperatures.

I don't know about you, but I think 1930s when I think about colorful happy quilts so I went to my bookshelf for some quick relief, and pulled down Link to the '30s, making the quilts we didn't inherit written by two sisters living in Texas, Kay Connors and Karen Earlywine.


The sisters are vintage style quilt and pattern makers. They design their quilts using period  newspaper quilt columns that offered mail order patterns and old quilts. Small photos of the original newspaper column pattern or quilt adorn each of the 9 quilt patterns featured in this book.

The patterns are from the columns  Nancy Page Quilt Club and Household Arts by Alice Brooks, and one is a McCall's wedding ring pattern., as seen on the book's cover.  Two signature quilt patterns are reproduced. One is from a 1931 quilt with embroidered names, and the other one is made into a contemporary quilt minus signatures.

The quilts chosen are familiar but I seldom see them reproduced at shows or on exhibit, which is nice. The patterns range in difficulty from beginner to experienced quilter. Most of them are mid range to advanced. The more difficult quilts contain curves, applique, and bias edges.

A variety of border treatments were made popular in the  Colonial Revival period between the World Wars  and are reflected in these patterns. Borders include the ice cream cone, prairie points, scallops, tiny half square triangles and the curved vine of petals (think of one Dresden plate petal).

Kay and Karen wrote a quilt stitch pattern book recently, Fancy to Frugal, authentic quilt patterns of the '30s. Here they are describing quilting  from the same time period, although Link to the '30s shows suggested quilting patterns for the borders and white or plain fabric blocks in the quilt.

These two books give you access to excellent patterns and ideas to pull from to make your own combinations of borders and blocks or to reproduce your own favorites. The templates are arranged on pages without overlapping each other for easy tracing, and illustrations are easy to see and understand. Their strip or rotary piecing directions are also easy to follow.

Please post your comments by clicking here http://www.quiltersspirit.blogspot.com/  if you are receiving this as a subscriber. Scroll down to "comments" below the post, click, and a comment box will appear. If you haven't read the great comments about Remembering Adelia, take a peek, even the author wrote in! Links top other

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Ruby McKim's State Flower Embroidery Blocks

In July 2008 I posted about some unique (to my eye) and beautiful embroidered state flower vintage blocks that were shown during a workshop I just taught, maker unknown. Soon after, as synchronicity would have it, I came across a quilt of them and found out it was Ruby McKim's state flower blocks. I asked for the readers input. and this post likely has more comments on it than any other. Ruby McKim was great and powerful ! Pigeon-holing her to any one look is a mistake.

The versatility of her designs is amazing and admirable. It is not automatic when I see unknown designs to think of her and it's a pleasure when I hear she was the designer. Wouldn't you have loved to spend time with Ruby in person, learn from her, be a student in her design classes?

Today I received more info as a comment worthy of posting here too and revisiting the other post. The original post about the quilt blocks is linked here and shows pictures, and the comment is from Juanita Moore. She writes:

Juanita Moore has left a new comment on your post "State Flower Embroidery Quilt Blocks Mystery Solve...": Ruby Short McKim was from Illinois and lived in Independence, Missouri most of her life after training at the New York City Parson School of Fine Arts.

McKim became known for her pieced quilt art-deco like designs, which she had prepared in simple lines for machine sewing, according to the History for the Heart Quilt Paths Across Illinois record of the Illinois Quilt Research Project, a book written by E. Duane Elbert and Rachel Kamm Elbert, and published in 1993 by Land of Lincoln Quilters Association.

The embroidered state flower designs were first published by the Illinois State Journal in Springfield, and released Sunday by Sunday to prepare for a contest at the end. There was both a local and a national contest. What a great way to sell newspapers!

Ruby also did newspaper columns on quilts, and ran a studio from which women ordered her patterns. You could get just a pattern for 20 cents and the whole Oriental Poppy pattern with cut-out fabric to piece for $4.50 God Bless!

Today you can find Ruby's patterns for sale here, but don't count on those same prices!
http://www.patchwork-quilt-patterns.com/ This site has the McKim 48 patterns available.

Thank you to all of the readers who submitted comments. it so much more fun when there is a dialogue on my blogs. I have returned to my professional life as a psychologist and I am loving it. I use meditation, mindfulness practices for stress reduction and pain relief and the new ways of talking and relating that help develop integration in the client's brain. These are well documented forms of therapy today that simply weren't known or known to be effective when I was practicing in the 1980s and 1990s. So it is my pleasure to be in the field again.

That said, my love of quilts and history, and talking with other quilters via my blog, is still alive and well, but a much smaller part of my life. When we do connect like this, it's pure pleasure, Thank you all for being there.

Namaste and many blessings, fabric and otherwise,

Kim




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NEW Signature Quilt Database is online now at The Quilt Index & Quilt and Antique Sewing Machine links you'll want to check out

I hope your thanksgiving was a blessed and joyful one with family, friends and quilts to keep you feeling good. The end of this fabulous year is nearly here. I have some opportunities coming to you in 2010 if you want to intensify the good in your life and live it to the fullest.

I've placed some links you might want to check out for your quilting pleasure below the fabulous news of the Signature Quilt database now online at The Quilt Index! WE thank you so much!

As you may have heard, the Quilt Index recently launched its expanded website, with more quilts, a new look, and new zoom and comparison tools.

One of the most compelling components of the expansion is the Signature Quilt Project (SQP). In all, 61 signature quilts were uploaded to the Index, surpassing our goal. In addition, QI staff identified more than 2,000 signature quilts that had already been added to the Index by contributing institutions.

They were categorized into themes for easy navigation-

The Beginnings of Signature Quilts: The 1840s Signature Quilts: Friendship and Family Signature Quilts and Westward Expansion The Golden Age of Signature Quilts, 1876-1910 Redwork Signature Quilts Community, Club, and Church: Public Signature Quilts Contemporary Signature Quilts Love to Wini: Signature Quilts for Healing and Comfort

You can find the Signature Quilt Project at http://www.quiltindex.org/signaturequiltproject.php. Here, you?ll find an essay, ?Researching Signature Quilts,? by Amanda Sikarskie, Marsha MacDowell, Karen Alexander and Nancy Hornback, a bibliography of recommended reading on signature quilts, and eight curated galleries that group the SQP public submission quilts thematically:

We have also created a special search page for signature quilts at http://www.quiltindex.org/signaturesearch.php. You can quickly browse all of the SQP public submission quilts by following the links.

We invite you to try using the Quilt Index?s new zoom tool with the signature quilts. A good one to try (because of the large file size of the original image) is the Jamestown First Baptist Church Quilt, contributed by Jane Evans Leonard, http://www.quiltindex.org/basicdisplaynew.php?kid=4-15-5C.

An interview with Merikay Waldvogel on Collector's Weekly, http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/the-history-of-american-quiltmaking-an-interview-with-merikay-waldvogel-part-one/

I'm also including a link to our quilts page in case you haven't seen it:http://www.collectorsweekly.com/folk-art/quilts

Here's a clue to the last link I'll send today.

- September 25th, 2009 at 6:12 pm Lisa Said:
"I just listened to episode 2 and I wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed it. I have never heard an interview quite like this on any quilting podcast. I loved hearing about quilting from a psychologist’s perspective. Quilting really does have healing powers!
Keep up the good work!"

This podcast interview was done by Marceli Botticelli, a mother, wife and an architect in Boston, who also loves quilt making and antique Singer sewing machines and their history. She requested an interview with me in the summer and was a joy. her lovely accent may fool you a bit. She is from Brazil originally but has lived all over. i was honored to be her first interview for this new blog.

http://wholelottasinger.blip.tv/posts?view=archive&nsfw=dc has episode 1 & 2 in blip TV or go to her blog http://wholelottasinger.wordpress.com/

That's all for now. Wish you each a pieceful week. I have some yummy DVD and Book reviews for you coming up and the other stuff I mentioned at the top. Love you all! Kim



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A Scrap Bag Full of Varied Info & Offerings - Keeping You in the Know :)

Hi Everyone! Grab a cup of java or glass of whatever and settle in with me.

1.) Have you heard the sad news that Cranston (VIP) closed its printing division in their Webster, Mass company? This means that there are no companies in America printing cotton fabric for apparel and quilters. Their textile mill began around 1812, almost 200 years ago. "The plant, which still rolls out 20 million yards of printed cloth a year for people who sew at home, once employed more than 700 people."

I have had the pleasure of taking a tour through their plant three times beginning in 1997 and I was always Wowed. They grew with the times, changing and improving their machinery and adding computerized dye coloring of the roller screen printing machines and all other aspects they could computerize, they did. I saw fewer employees on each visit and no smoking went into affect.

Cranston was not weaving cotton cloth, they imported it from overseas, but all the printing was done there with the design division in NYC. Now foreign companies will also do their printing, just as all the other former quilt fabric manufacturers have done. They will only package and distribute the textiles they design from their US facilities. You can see a short video of their machinery in process and read more about their history and closing here.

2.) AQSG is offering all of the UNCOVERINGS they have in stock at 50% off through June. The order form is in a PDF, to print it out and mail in. Contact AQSG's website to find the link UC JUNE SALE.PDF This is a great deal.

3.) Beth Davis sent me this article in response to my increasing interest in the publishing world, thank you Beth! It was written today by the managing director of one the finest art and textile book publishers, Thames and Hudson. Jamie Camplin writes [bolding is my emphasis]

"If we moan about “dumbing down” in the face of the visual noise that comes our way daily, it only means that we are living in the age of “more”—more that is mediocre, but also more that is astonishingly creative.

Art has a very strong hand to play in the 21st century. In an era in which technology makes most products more uniform but in which printing technology can show art’s strengths as never before, in which fragmenting marketplaces and marketing platforms need all the help they can get, and in which the power of the visual to sway emotions has never been stronger, art’s distinctiveness, creativity and originality give any art-book programme a strong start." (the complete article is here)

4.) Camplin's statement gives me hope that beautiful textile and quilt books will continue to be published and that novice authors, quilters, and other creative people can publish too, online as eBooks, self-published or through traditional publishers. All three have their place. All three have pros and cons for an author to consider in determining which is a better fit for her.

If you have the desire to be an author, are writing your book now,or want to sell the one you have now, get this free report about building your author platform online, written by Joanna Penn, a favorite writer and blogger of mine.

Click on the icon above to read her description of the free report. If it sounds good, then you'll know if you want to buy the tutorial, Author 2.0. It is video, audio, and written text. All learning styles can use it. I highly recommend you get the free report!

Joanna just published "Author 2.0" which both shows and tells anyone how to market their book, beginning before it's written. Publishing houses expect you to put your marketing plan and current platform into any book proposal you submit. If you self publish this is also a must do for you. It can be fun!!

She will be my guest in a free open lines Tele-class, with a slide show, this Thursday, June 4th at 4 PM Pacific time, 7 PM Eastern. It's fr.ee. Ask her questions or email me with them in advance. The call-in info, conference code and link to slide show is here now. The class will be recorded and available on WOQ in the Audio Interview Library.

Joanna is internet savvy. She learned by authoring 3 books and speaks clearly, simply, and to the point. She gives you lots of info about using the internet to your benefit to increase sales and get your words in the hands of people who will enjoy and benefit from your hard work of writing a book!

Get her free report (click the icon above) about the state of the publishing world and what you can do with WEB 2.0, crucial info for marketing through social media and the newest internet forms of media and learn more about the business model for today's market.

6.) When you are feeling down quilting can lift you up again for reasons you might not expect is the title of an article I wrote over the weekend. Read it on Womenfolk's web site. Here is a snippet of my favorite tip for relieving stress from a recent UCLA study, but applicable to quilters during these economic times:

"The friendship effect on females natural response to stress was recently demonstrated in a university's landmark study which showed that different chemicals than in male brains are released during these times of bonding. Oxytocin is the natural occurring chemical released in a woman's brain when she gives birth, breastfeeds and cares for children. The chemical dulls pain and buffers the automatic "flight or flight" chemical response. The numerous opportunities for meaningful conversations and sharing of feelings happen during a girl's night out,...."

Read the rest of my article here. From that page click on Frugal Quilts for patterns and more articles about the past and present.

In closing, I hope you are enjoying reading CHANGING TIMES:Women's Stories 1902-1942. Click the title or the icon on the upper left of this page will download it for you to read online or print out to read in a cozy chair. Lot's of wonderful comments are coming in about it. Please comment here on Quilter's Spirit.**

Wishing you each a fulfilling and creative week!

Kim

**It's easy to make a comment: See the word Comment below? If there is a number other than 0 next to it, click it to read the comments already posted, and a box for you to put in your comment in also comes up. You can write it anonymously or with your name. Please don't solicit your products there, instead hyperlink your blog or web site URL to your name. The comment box makes it very easy for you to do that if you don't already know how. Readers who are interested in knowing more about you because your comment is interesting and relevant will click on your name to "meet" in your territory. (hint-comments done this way are good for marketing)

Women's Historical Fiction Challenge E-Book is Here! Download Yours Now

Women On Quilts' Creative Writing Challenge - Changing Times: Women's Stories 1902-1942

This special digital book is for you. Click on the cover and enjoy!

16 fictional stories written by 14 women about women who create and live at a tough time in our history. Complete with period photos & quilts, plus personal thoughts from the writer's & judge's about their stories. 53 pages.

You can read it online or download and print it out. Send it to your friends in your book club. Put it on your blog, an icon is available. The women in the stories are the types we want our daughters to know about too,  share it with them.

I'll let the book tell you the rest. I welcome, no encourage, your comments below. Which stories touched your heart and why? Let us know. All are deserving. Warning, have tissue handy.

Soon the finalists will be guests on a tele-interview on Women On Quilts. It will be an open discussion. First I want to give you the time to read the stories. Stay tuned for the date and time by subscribing for my occasional email alerts. They won't flood your inbox.

Julie Silber will be my guest interview on June 15.

Ghost Quilt Show on Hold & Creative Writing Challenge Reminder

Thank you to everyone who wrote me behind-the-scenes and in comments on the blog. I loved hearing your thoughts about ghosts and spirits in textiles and homes, and talking about your personal experiences. But alas, no photos came in for our show and tell.

In reptrospect this may be in part due to Sat. landing on a holiday weekend. I told you I have been super busy and it didn't occure to me until a few people said they would be away for Easter. May you all have a blessed Sunday.

As a result, I won't be holding a phone or webcast talk on Sat. ,prior to my first ghost hunt, but I talked some freinds into going, so we'll have a blast.

Do you want to hear about it? Do you want to schedule another ghost quilt show& tell? I could share my experience and have a show and tell if you have photos to share.

Let's open it up to any textiles or sewing or needlework that have a spirit attached, or so it seems possible to you. Let me know by commenting below or emailing.

TO COMMENT- click on the word comment below the blog post. If there is a number infront of it, taht tells how many people have commented. I would prefer if all the comments showed up on the post itslef, and I have set it that way in the settings section, but it doesn't work out. I love your comments and read every one.
Do you like a Sat. time or prefer a weekday evening?

The Writing Challenge- If you are writing a creative fictional women's story for the writing challenge, we love you!! I have received some wonderful stories. Thank you so much for joining in and sharing the words from your heart and mind. The deadline is April 20th about 12 days from today.

If you haven't tried to write a work of fiction, you are missing a joyful inner experience. let your imagination go, be in a place and time, with people you would love to be with, quilting, sewing, knitting, growing food, writing poems, whatever makes your heart sing. Do it in 1000 words or less and you have a chance to be published and interviewed on my WOQ with the others finalists. We'll have a great time!

Take the chance of risking your creativity, challenge yourself. Make a quilt inspired by your story, design it to reflect the feeling in your woman's story. Send in the photo and I'll blog it. No, I don't expect that this would be before the deadline, whenever is good.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!


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A Sign of the Times

It seems to me that nearly every week I hear about a quilt or fabric shop closing. Not just here, but all over the country. Yet, I also keep hearing that fabric purchases for clothing are on the rise. More and more women and girls are making their own clothes. In fact, I received a phone call today from a woman asking where her 19 year old granddaughter could get sewing lessons, as she wanted to start her own business.

photo of my quilt, ca. 1900-1920 scrappy

The other common theme being discussed in quilting blogs, articles, and among quilters, is the Great Depression. No, not the one we are in, but the first one. With the GD comes history and the people's stories. Reading them I forget that we are in one ourselves. Nothing like the distraction being, well, the same thing as the problem you want to be distracted from!

So it wasn't a surprise when I came across two wonderful women's articles today on these topics. If you enjoy reading history of women's lives, read these and see if you feel yummy or ? If you don't like history, skip them because you won't feel yummy or distracted at all.

Great Depression Survivor:I worked for Shoes, by Kimberly Palmer "Everyone knows about patchwork quilts which we used for bed covers. The tops of our quilts were made of scrap material left from my mother’s sewing projects. The patterns varied with the colors and sizes of the pieces. Patterns were obtained from relatives and neighbors-often copied from quilts or magazines. The tops were quilted by hand to muslin linings through cotton batting.

My mother made our night clothes from flannel for the winter, but we generally slept in old dresses or slips in warmer weather. We usually had about two or three dresses each for everyday and one for Sunday. I remember one time, I had gotten all my everyday dresses dirty and my mother allowed me to wear my Sunday to school on Monday which was wash day... As I was crossing the creek, I fell in and got my dress wet and muddy and I had to go back home. I missed school that day because I had nothing presentable to wear to school." http://tinyurl.com/89gwmp U.S. News and World Report, Jan. 7, 2009

Life Before Shopping by Patricia McLaughlin "It's only in retrospect — now that it's over — that you begin to notice how odd it was that shopping, a task that played such a minor role in the lives of most Americans before World War II, should over the last half-century have so thoroughly captivated, saturated and finally remade American society, culture, values, habits and folkways in its own image....

I can't remember which sociologist pointed out that a big part of the modernizing of American households universally ballyhooed as progress in the late 1940s and 1950s — the washers and dryers and vacuum cleaners and ready-made clothes and store-bought cake mixes and canned goods and cellophane-wrapped cakes and cookies and loaves of airy sliced bread — boiled down to the de-skilling of housework. ...

Women whose mothers had been highly skilled producers of cakes and jams and quilts and clothing instead developed skills as competitive shoppers.

In retrospect, it seems like a bad bargain. Notice how much of the work women were "rescued" from in the 1950s — quilting, baking, knitting, cooking from scratch, growing vegetables — has found its way back into their lives relabeled as recreation." Read on to find out why she thinks. http://tinyurl.com/7h4xwk STLToday.com

McLaughlin's entire article is a yummy read. She supports her thesis well. I just couldn't get the Maytag repair man, sitting on his chair, out of my mind :)

I have a dozen or more "Olde Time Needlework Patterns and Designs" magazines for sale. Not necessarily those shown above. Email me for info and list of dates.