Gifts from Gilmer.
On this day in 1935, John Royce Mathis was born in Gilmer, Texas to Clem and Mildred Mathis. The family moved to San Francisco when Johnny was a young boy his father, recognizing his son’s musical potential, bought him a piano for $25 and traded odd jobs for voice lessons. Mathis excelled at sports too—competing as a star athlete in track and field and basketball in high school. Mathis’s recording career highlights includes an unprecedented 480 continuous weeks on the Billboard Top Albums Chart for his Greatest Hits record, released in 1958. Donoene McKay of Gilmer, Texas machine pieced and hand quilted this Yellow Rose of Texas quilt in 1983, using more than 5,000 pieces to create the pictorial motif. This quilt was reviewed and documented during the Texas Sesquicentennial Quilt Association’s Phase II of the Texas Quilt Search, 1986-1989, and contributed to The Quilt Index by the Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. From this record: Quiltmaker states: I always wanted to do something in mosaic and did not know how. Had always done my own needlepoint designs and realized one day that each stitch could be used as a square. I worked out a needlepoint rose from [the Jackson & Perkins] catalog–then painted it in oils, then marked a grid. The Olfa cutter was new and gave me trouble to learn to use, but what a godsend for cutting out 5000+ little squares. I sewed on 4 machines with different colors thread, having filed the presser feet to one eighth in width. I made a mock-up with muslin background and began again with the green background. Both quilts were finished in one year.” View this quilt on The Quilt Index to find out! Read more about its history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view or click the “See full record” link to see a larger image and all the data entered about that quilt. Source: http://www.johnnymathis.com/bio2.php Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
read moreSpears, Globes, Carpets, and Climbers.
On this day in 1988, Stacy Allison of Portland, Oregon, became the first American woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the highest point on earth. Allison is now an author and motivational speaker. Jan Magee of Denver, Colorado machine pieced and embroidered and machine and hand quilted this 22” x 29” wall piece, titled “Spears, Globes, Carpets, and Climbers” in 2004. From this Quilt Index record: This quilt is one of 64 art quilts that make up the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum’s Rooted in Tradition Collection, which is on traveling exhibit throughout the USA through 2008. Featured in the book “Rooted in Tradition: Art Quilts from the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum.” … Donated to the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum by the maker, Jan Magee of Denver, CO.f View this quilt on The Quilt Index to find out! Read more about its history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view or click the “See full record” link to see a larger image and all the data entered about that quilt. Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/american-woman-climbs-everest Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
read moreThe Old Sea Chest Discovery.
On this day in 1953, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, a photographer for the Washington Times-Herald, at St. Mary’s church in Newport, Rhode Island. Wedding guests numbered over 750 and another 3,000 onlookers waited outside the church. Kennedy was elected U.S. President seven years later, the youngest man to ever take this office. This Kaleidoscope quilt top was made around 1919 in Newport, Rhode Island. The owner discovered the quilt and others in an old sea chest in his family home, and documented in the Rhode Island Quilt Documentation Project in 1992. From this record: “Owner is unsure of who made this and other quilts found with it, but believes it to be one of three women: Pamela Albro-owner’s great grandmother, Fanny Albro Barker-owner’s grandmother, or Rebecca Barker Dennis-owner’s aunt.” View this quilt on The Quilt Index to find out! Read more about its history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view or click the “See full record” link to see a larger image and all the data entered about that quilt. Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/jfk-marries-jacqueline-bouvier Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
read moreTying the Knots.
On this day in 2001, four coordinated terrorist attacks were carried out in the United States by al-Qaeda, an Islamist extremist group. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people from 93 nations. 2,753 people were killed in the World Trade Center in New York City, 184 people were killed at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and 40 people were killed on Flight 93 in Pennsylvania. Rebecca Magnus of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan made this Square in a Square quilt in 2001. She remembers: “I was tying the knots in the last two sections of machine quilting threads when I saw the 2nd plane hit the World Trade Center. This will forever be etched in my mind – where I was and what I was doing.” Magnus documented her quilt through the Michigan Quilt Project. Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/attack-on-america Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
read moreA Note Sewn to the Quilt.
On this day in 1893, First Lady Frances Folsom Cleveland, the wife of President Grover Cleveland, gave birth to their second daughter, Esther, in the White House. The Cleveland child was not the first baby to be born in the White House; Thomas Jefferson’s daughter Martha Randolph gave birth to her son James Madison Randolph there in 1806. Louiza Sheardon of Iowa (Cold or Collins) made this Churn Dash Crib Quilt in July, 1893. A note sewn to the quilt reads: “John W. Phares. This brown calico with the little white and green specks in is a dress of your grand mother Paxton’s mother’s. Consequently it was little Louiza Phare’s Great Great Grand Mother’s dress. I made a present of this little quilt to my name-sake this 3rd day – july 1893 in the 74 year of my age. Your Aunt Lou Sheardon (Shardon?) Copied by Louiza’s Sister (Laura)” The owner of the quilt, a relative of Mary Louiza Phares, received it as a gift and documented it during the Florida Quilt Project. View this quilt on The Quilt Index to find out! Read more about its history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view or click the “See full record” link to see a larger image and all the data entered about that quilt. Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/presidents-child-born-in-white-house Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
read moreTree of Life (and death) in South Carolina.
On this day in 1781, one of the bloodiest battles of the Revolutionary War took place in Eutaw Springs, on the banks of the Santee River in South Carolina. This was the last major battle of the Revolutionary war to take place in the South and casualties included 500 Americans and 700 British. Charlotte Evance Cordes hand quilted this wholecloth Tree of Life quilt around 1810 in St. Stephen’s Parish, South Carolina (about 25 miles east of Eutaw Springs). Cordes was the daughter of Major Thomas Evance, and the quilt remained with the family until 1983 when the family donated the quilt to the DAR Museum. View this quilt on The Quilt Index to find out! Read more about its history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view or click the “See full record” link to see a larger image and all the data entered about that quilt. Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/bloody-battle-begins-at-eutaw-springs-south-carolina See photos of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church built in St. Stephens, S.C. in 1769 (still in use today). Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
read moreQ.S.O.S. Spotlight
We’re a day late for this week’s Q.S.O.S. Sunday Spotlight, but we’re right on time for Labor Day here in the United States. While looking through our Q.S.O.S. stories, I noticed a trio of interviews with Vermont-based quilters, each of whom were involved with the Vermont Quilt Festival, which got its start at the Northfield, Vermont Labor Day festival. Though the Vermont Quilt Festival has moved, Northfield continues to have a Labor Day celebration each year.This week, we’re featuring excerpts from 3 interviews, each about the way that a small-town festival influenced their own quiltmaking story.Cyrena Persons told interview Nola Forbes about helping out at the first festival, where quilts were laid on the floor for judging: “Nola Forde: Tell about some of your experiences with the Vermont Quilt Festival.Cyrena Persons: That started out, the first that I knew about it, it may have started the previous year, in Northfield. At the Labor Day festival. I’m not sure what they call it, but Dick Cleveland decided that there should be a Quilt Show incorporated in this festival, this celebration. We met with another lady. […] Yes, Jeannie Hutchinson. We met at the Armory. [laughs.] Dick thought we ought to judge these quilts that came in. I don’t think there were more than five or six quilts. We had no way to hang them up. So somehow he had obtained some newsprint from the newspaper office. He laid it out. Rolled out this newsprint on the floor. A couple of layers of it.NF: This was blank newsprint?CP: Yes. We spread the quilts on it. Why, that was the beginning of my life. That was something else. We judged those quilts […] I’ve always been amazed at the progression of the show. It started out to be local quiltmakers. Then more and more antique quilts came in. I was able to write the commentary about the antique quilts for a time. It’s just a wonderful memory of going to those shows and seeing the progress that quiltmakers have made. The art quilts were developed along with that. Several years after the show got started, I think. It just amazes me. I am pleased that I could have been a part of it.”Connie Page started quilting after being inspired by what she saw one Labor Day weekend at the festival in Northfield:”I can remember going, years ago, my husband and I, on Labor Day were taking a ride on his motorcycle. We ended up in Northfield. [Vermont.] We stopped because there were things going on for Labor Day. They were having something called a quilt show. I didn’t know anything about quilt shows then. I went in to the old Armory there. There were some old ones, beautiful ones. Then I went across the street and in the stores across the street. They were fabulous, I thought. I didn’t know people could do that with fabric. That was the start.”Lucile Leister also shared her memories of the early years of the quilt show in Northfield:”I don’t know exactly, I don’t remember exactly how I got started, but it was definitely with Richard Cleveland. Dick Cleveland and I were kind of–[laughs.] we got along very well. He was very interested in quilts. He didn’t make quilts himself, but as the same thing happened to me, he had some quilts from his family, and he didn’t know how they were made, but he’d like to find out. He thought there were some other people that knew how to do this, and so I got kind of in cahoots with Dick Cleveland. At that point, they were having a Labor Day celebration in Northfield. [Vermont.] He started–the Vermont Quilt Festival started as a group of quilts in the basement of the church in Northfield. Well, we didn’t have very many wonderful quilts in those days, but we had quilts. That’s how it got started, it was very small but there was a group of people that were interested in getting it–getting this thing started. Well, it wasn’t very long before the basement of the church was not adequate, so there was–I don’t remember whether–there was a place downtown that we had it, but I think that was after we even got started at Norwich because we realized that Norwich University had the space that we could use. There were some people up there that were willing to get–to put in some work on it, too. So I was on the Board of the Quilt Festival for quite a number of years, until it began to get so big that I just thought ‘No, I guess I don’t really need to get into anything that big.’ I did teach a few years, but at the point where it just mushroomed–and it really did mushroom there at one point.”Want to learn more? You can read more quilt stories on the Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories page on the Quilt Alliance website.Posted by Emma ParkerProject Manager, Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our…
read moreLet Freedom Ring!
On this day in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have A Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Beverly Ann White of Pontiac, Michigan made this quilt, titled “View from the Mountain Top” in 1991. White made this quilt to teach students, family, and friends about important heroes in African-American history. The quilt features appliqued and embroidered portraits of Medgar Evers, Thrugood Marshall, Martin Luther King, Jr., Harriet Tubman, Frances E.W. Harper, Sojourner Truth, Mary McLeod Bethune, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Bunche, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. Dubois. [Dr. King’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech was delivered on April 3, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.] White donated her quilt to the Michigan State University Museum in 2003. View this quilt on The Quilt Index to find out! Read more about its history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view or click the “See full record” link to see a larger image and all the data entered about that quilt. Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/king-speaks-to-march-on-washington Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
read moreKinderquilter.
On this day in 1833, Margarethe Meyer Schurz was born in Hamburg, Germany. Schurtz studied education with Freidrich Froebel, the creator of the “kindergarten” concept, then moved to the U.S. and founded the country’s first kindergarten. The program, in Watertown, Wisconsin, lead young children in games, songs and group activities channeling their energy and preparing them for primary school. Maude Ada Franks Combs made this String Quilt in the 1930’s in Wellington, Texas. The quilt is foundation machine pieced and hand quilted and was one of many that Combs made for her family, teaching her daughter (who now owns the quilt) the “necessary homemaking arts” in the process. Combs’ daughter wrote: “I do not recall at what age she taught me to mark, cut, and string tiny pieces for intricate blocks, but when I was enrolled in kindergarten, I had scissor marks on my right hand and my thimble finger was already bent and I was not even five years old.” The quilt was documented during the Texas Quilt Search Project and is included in the book Lone Stars: A Legacy of Texas Quilts, Vol. II, 1936-1986, by Karoline Patterson Bresenhan and Nancy O’Bryant Puentes (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990. It was included in an exhibition by the same name at the 1990 International Quilt Festival, Houston, Texas. View this quilt on The Quilt Index to find out! Read more about its history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view or click the “See full record” link to see a larger image and all the data entered about that quilt. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarethe_Schurz Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
read moreIt’s a Man’s World Unless Women Vote!
On this day in 1920, the 19th Amendment of the United States Constitution is adapted guaranteeing American women the right to vote. The amendment reads: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex” and “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” Gerry Krueger of Spokane, Washington, made this quilt titled “It’s a Man’s World Unless Women Vote!” in 2011 for the Quilt Alliance contest, “Alliances: People, Patterns, Passion.” Krueger wrote in her artist’s statement: “When seeing the photo of the men facing backward juxtaposed to the photo of the women facing forward, I knew I wanted the suffrage movement to be the theme of my AAQ entry.” View this quilt on The Quilt Index to find out! Read more about its history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view or click the “See full record” link to see a larger image and all the data entered about that quilt. Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/19th-amendment-adopted Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
read moreTwo Altheas and a Square Within a Square.
On this day in 1927, American tennis champion Althea Gibson was born in Silver, South Carolina. Despite a challenging childhood spent in the New York City borough of Harlem, Gibson made history as the first African-American tennis player to compete at both the U.S. National Championships (1950) and Wimbledon (1951). Althea Orr Diament hand pieced and hand quilted this Square Within a Square quilt in 1900 in Cedarville, New Jersey. Her granddaughter now owns the quilt and documented it as part of The Heritage Quilt Project of New Jersey, Inc. View this quilt on The Quilt Index to find out! Read more about its history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view or click the “See full record” link to see a larger image and all the data entered about that quilt. Source: http://www.biography.com/people/althea-gibson-9310580#synopsis Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
read moreQ.S.O.S. Spotlight
Have you seen our latest news? We’ve just announced the theme for the 9th annual 2015 Quilt Alliance contest: Animals We Love. We’re accepting 16″ square quilts–of all styles, from traditional piecing to embellished art quilt–featuring the animals we love. Don’t worry, you’ve still got plenty of time to get started–the deadline isn’t until May 1, 2015. But in celebration of the announcement of next year’s theme, we’re featuring a quilt all about beloved animals. Read on for the story of this incredible tribute to four-legged and feathered friends by quilter Shirley Kelly! “This quilt is called “…And Friends of the Family.” It’s a number of pets that we have had over a span of forty-five years, either my son or my daughter or my husband and myself. Right now the only living one is the second one down from the top in the corner, the Jack Russell terrier, my daughter’s dog. He’s about four years old, but all the others have passed on. The only true “friend” as such is Kelso, famous racehorse. He’s this one. He belonged to a very nice lady who lives down in Maryland, but she always sent us Christmas cards with Kelso’s name on it, so we count him as one of the friends. The little rabbit toy was my grandson’s toy when he was very small, and it probably had as much love and attention as all the other animals put together. This is only a very small representation of all the animals that my family have had over the years, but these are the most important ones to us. […] I think the fish were the first ones that I did, and they were just a picture. I never got around to quilting them. Then that was kind of fun, and I thought it would be interesting to do the horse at the top, Kimbo. Then the tiger cat was my lap kitty, and he was getting rather old, and I thought it would be kind of nice to do one of him too, so I ended up with three of them, and just suddenly the idea clicked that I could do all of the others.They had been done in one way or another, either photography, drawing, something like that. Practically all of the ones up there have been done with pencil drawing at least once, and now they’re immortalized with fabric.” Ready to get started on your contest entry? Learn more about the guidelines here. You can read more quilt stories on the Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories page on the Quilt Alliance website. Posted by Emma Parker Project Manager, Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories qsos@quiltalliance.org …
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