Tip #9

#9

Perhaps you've noticed antique quilts in museums with a very visible centre fold line. The eye picks up that middle crease very easily.

The best way to store your quilts is to fold them in thirds avoiding that centre crease.

If you want to be extra cautious, you can roll up a piece of fabric and place it in the fold then fold your quilt over that tubular barrier. That will help avoid a visible crease.

Some collectors like to lay their quilts on a guest bed and have them flat. The quilts are just piled up one over the other. I think that makes them more difficult to access but at least they lay flat. 

Another interesting way is to roll them. I use a pool noodle as my centre support. I use this method for my textile art work.

For the quilts that are in use, I fold them in thirds then roll them into a large cylinder shape. They stand upright in a basket near the couch readily available! Love to see all the colours!!

Hexagons in Fashion

Surprise! Dior has a quilt pattern in their pre-Fall 2017 fashion line!

ceramic tile detail in Barcelona, Spain

My Veronese friend Piera's latest quilt!
All hand pieced and hand quilted.
The outside shape of the 3-d block is a hexagon

picture taken at the ROM in Toronto, BIG/Méga exhibit
quote from the label: "Needlework was a professional trade
 as well as a domestic skill associated with the feminine virtues
 of patience, concentration and cleanliness"
...comment anyone??

A cube quilt in the process- interesting how the quilt maker
used a grey and black for 2 sides of the cube
 and only one coloured piece.

Click here to see how Dior used the hexagon shape! (it is slide #46) Interesting ....although the model doesn't seem to be too happy to be wearing it! (I can't stop laughing!)

Popular construction of a hexagon during the 30's and 40's,
hand pieced and hand quilted

Charlotte's Webs in Blue
large hexagon quilt by Judy Beca
(photo taken at the York Heritage Quilters Guild Show
Inspired by Bob Gutcher's spiderweb quilt

We are ahead of the fashion curve, ladies!

I show this example when I teach the art element of value.
Value is very visible when comparing it
to the same photo (below) in black and white.

Wednesday's Program

The focus of Wednesday's program was visiting the exhibits.

Keiko Goke's work

We milled around Verona all day in small groups spending time at different shows.

Japanese exhibit

A few of us attended Jen Jones' talk on her Antique Welsh Quilt collection.

Jen Jones (in white),
Paola Marini, director of Castel Vecchio museum, (beige suit)

She is a font of knowledge on the subject of Welsh quilts. Oddly enough she is not a quilter. In the 1980's when many Welsh families were getting rid of their "old bedding", she started her collection only to preserve this hand work.

She said the quilts were treated with disregard often used for covering sick cattle, covering vegetable gardens, folded and put under a door to prevent the wind from entering the house and Wales gets lots of wind!

exiting the Japanese exhibit

The travellers are very inspired by the city and by the wonderful textile work they are seeing.

Tommi at the Osteria/Enoteca Alcova del Frate

We ended with a wonderful dinner all together at Alcova del Frate, with lots of laughing!

Preparatevi

Get Ready!

We are everywhere in the city!

The official opening for Verona Tessile is next Monday!

Today, I helped with the Jen Jones' antique Welsh quilts at Castel Vecchio Museum.

Busy day- my last to prepare for the 10 Canadians arriving tomorrow!

Antique Quilts

Over the years I have bought a few antique quilts. They are lovely to hold and definitely nice on a bed. The cotton has soften after so many washes.

a log cabin from my collection

The fabric choices are always interesting since no one went out and brought the "right" colours. They repurposed fabrics they had from a  dress or apron and used fabric sample booklets.

I love the hand embroidery added to the
 blue and white gingham. Clever addition!

While I was in Verona last week, I found out Jen Jones will be exhibiting her antique Welsh quilts during Verona Tessile. She will also be giving a lecture.

I like this one but ended up not buying it in the end.

You can watch a video of Jen Jones talking about her collection by clicking here.

This quilt is so soft from all the washings. I like the white tufts from the ties.
I also like the circles that come into view as your eyes scan the quilt.

If you want to join me in Verona for 10 days/9 nights and see her quilts and enjoy the city and the entire textile event (exhibits, classes, tours and great food!) click here for information.

Personality

I wasn't sure what to call this post but PERSONALITY I think is right.

When you make a quilt where does your personality come through? (No where if you are making a quilt from a kit!)

If you are expressing yourself your person is everywhere- in your colour choice, in your placement of blocks and shapes, in your fabric selection (which I hope is yours and not the lady's from the quilt shop!)

Even in this traditional red and white pattern made by hand, the personality of the maker can come through! In this case I'd say it is in the back fabric choice.

I see a sense of humour in the person who made this cotton quilt. The back is playful. I have several antique quilts in my collection that have a plain white backing which would have worked perfectly fine for this quilt... but not as fun!

It is an antique quilt from a friend's cottage in Nova Scotia.

Sadly there is no label. No one in her family knows who made it and when. She has a complete cupboard full ...all anonymous.

I see those unlabelled quilts without an anchor, without a place in the past. I see them floating and  hovering not attached to anyone.

A name and a date is all you need to write. It's so important.

Quilt Exhibit at Black Creek Pioneer Village

If on August 16 and 17 you are in the area of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, get yourself down to see the fabulous quilts on display at Black Creek Pioneer Village.

There are antique, traditional and modern ones on display inside the historical buildings and outside on the grounds.

One of my quilts is there. Not sure where they'll put it but here it is below.

About this Quilt 

This quilt is made of scraps, that is to say no new fabric was purchased for the top. What was used were pieces leftover from other projects. Even the whites are not all the same. I used what I had.

The back is a fabulous chartreuse I purchase especially- a colour that brought the whole thing forward into the NOW. The binding is a bright orange and rust coloured fabric bought new. It has a sharp geometric design that is uneven. It looks fabulous and again brings it to the contemporary realm.

Choosing a back fabric for a scrap quilt can
sometimes be a challenge as the fabric
has to compliment so many colours.

Binding of geometric designs adds some interest. The triangles recall
those on the top.

I often add bands of scrap fabrics on the back,
to add interest or to add yardage!

The pattern for this quilt is an old one from Atkinson Designs called Monterrey Medallions.

I signed up to take the quilt workshop ages ago, in 2005. Everyone who knows me well, knows I do not follow quilt patterns. I advocate expressing yourself and feel much pride when students create something that is their own. I don't feel that in this case I did that. I think that is why the top stayed folded on a shelf until last June (2014). Although the fabrics were my choice, the quilt wasn't ME, it wasn't a reflexion of my style. I copied a pattern. No heart in this work!

I took the workshop because I wanted a "day off" from my mom duties and this workshop gave me that. It was a once-a-month class where you'd get together with friends and catch up and praise each other's blocks. The workshop served its purpose. The process is what I wanted not the finished product.

 I do like it much better now that I added the back and binding that are my style. 

The quilt definitely reads well which is why I submitted it. The contrast is very good and it will look great hung outside at The Creek.

Birthday Presents

My niece turned 11 yesterday.

I made her two pillows for her room using a pineapple quilt block as the front.

I used old shirts for the backs, therefore forgoing the time consuming step of button-hole making.
(Clever idea from teacher Johanna Masko)

Men's shirts used for the backs of pillows.

The pineapple block centre is perfect for fussy cutting a special design.

I made a pineapple block quilt about 20 years ago. I used the traditional foundation piecing method. But the method I learned at the Workroom was shorter and one could square-up the block after each addition. It was great! I had a fun time and did learn some things even though I have been quilting for about 25 years.

Fun centre cut.
If you don't have enough of the same fabric to make 4 strips
you can use two different fabrics and place them facing each other
in the round. Your eye tends not to notice the differences that way.

For the first pillow I made, I started with the shirt colour.

I picked up this shirt at Goodwill for cheap and
resewed the buttons using embroidery floss in a nice colour.

Then I chose the corner piece from my stash, which went well with the shirt.

From there, I went through my 1 1/2 inch strips and selected the blues and whites.

I'd like to make a full-size quilt using darks with brown and orange strips. The design that appears when each block is put together is very effective.

Photo from the book Quilts by Judy Wentworth,
published by Crescent Books
This quilt is from the 19th century, thought to be
made by a plantation slave in the southern United States.

Quilts at the MOMA

American artist Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) worked in COMBINES- works in which he affixed cast-off items to a traditional support.

Bed (1955)
by Robert Rauschenberg
oil and pencil on pillow, quilt and sheet on wood supports
(photo courtesy of Sophia Reford)

They say that the bedding used in Bed was actually his own, making this a very intimate piece, almost as intimate as a self-portrait. 

Using cast-off items is very much in my vein of thinking.

I have used discarded items before, even an antique quilt which was badly damaged when I got it.

The previous owner had cut out a few blocks that were probably in better condition and my guess is  a pillow was made with them.

I used the damaged quilt as a starting point for "Pages of My Life" (2011).

It is an homage to my grandmother. 

"Pages of My Life" was exhibited in Toronto and in Italy
and was shown on OMNI newscast.

She came to America and started working in a clothing factory in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 

Her job was to embellish "mistakes" in clothing therefore using her creativity to hide the mistake. The one-of-a-kind garment was often sold for more money.

I repaired the quilt and in doing so told some of the story of her life.

Love Those Hexagons

What a find!

A double-bed size quilt, vintage, from Kentucky, USA, all hand pieced and hand quilted.

The quilting is so fine that even I had trouble deciding if it was machine done or not. The stitches are so small and pretty even. The person who made this had great skill.

Too bad it has no provenance. There is no label. The little I know was told to me by the person who bought it in the States.

It is being packed in my suitcase because I am giving it to my italian "sister". She'll love it, I know. She told me she loves it...I had to send her a picture because it will take up half my suitcase and I didn't want to bring it if she didn't like it!