by Quilt Alliance | Jun 3, 2014 | On this Day in History Quilts series
On this day in 1906, world-famous dancer, singer and actress Josephine Baker (Freda Josephine McDonald) was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Baker, who ran away from home to dance in vaudeville and on Broadway at age 13, was the first African American woman to star in a major motion picture (Zouzou, 1934). Baker moved to Paris in 1925 and there became one of the best-known entertainers in France and Europe. Baker died in 1975, two days after her last performance in Paris. Noted quilt historian, Cuesta Benberry of St. Louis, made this quilt top with the help of Annette Ammen, Lois Mueller and George Ammen (Annette’s husband), who drew many of the designs. Each block signifies something of importance in African American women’s quiltmaking experiences. Cuesta Benberry’s son donated this quilt, along with the rest of Benberry’s quilt ephemera collection, to the Michigan State University Museum when she passed away in 2008. 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://womenshistory.about.com/od/bakerjosephine/p/josephine_baker.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Baker Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
by Quilt Alliance | Jun 2, 2014 | On this Day in History Quilts series
On this day in 1868, African American educator and race leader John Hope was born in Augusta, Georgia. His father was Scottish-born and his mother was a free African American woman born in Hancock County, Georgia. The couple lived openly as husband and wife, although Georgia law prohibited interracial marriage until 1967. At age 38, Hope became the first black president of Morehouse College—the alma mater of Martin Luther King Jr., and twenty-three years later became president of Atlanta University. Young John Drake of Atlanta, Georgia, made this Lord’s Prayer quilt in 1928. Drake was around 9 or 10 years of age when he hand pieced and hand quilted the piece with a “little help from his grandmother.” Drake’s sister inherited the quilt and she documented it during the Michigan 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.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/education/john-hope-1868-1936 Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
by Quilt Alliance | Jun 1, 2014 | Uncategorized
It’s hard to believe that we’re already five full months into 2014! Since today happens to be June 1st, our Q.S.O.S. Spotlight this Sunday is on an interviewee named June! June Ross, who has won first place in American Heritage and DAR quilt contests. Too much of a stretch for you? Read on for some excerpts from June’s Q.S.O.S. interview: On her unusual reason for starting to quilt: “I started quite late in life. I am a retired art teacher, and I remarried 24 years ago to a gentleman who had a hardware background and was not used to the mess that a creative person creates, so I gave up making baskets, and I sold my loom, and I started making quilts which I could fold up and neatly put in a little spot that wouldn’t bother him.” An amusing anecdote from her quilting life: “I have a pretty extensive basket collection, and included in the basket collection are two workbaskets that were made by the slaves in South Carolina, and I took them to be appraised at one point, and the lady who was appraising the baskets remembered them. She was mounting an exhibit, and so she came to the house to take pictures of them and measure them etcetera and she brought a friend of hers from South Africa who was looking at my quilts while the lady was taking care of the baskets. And when she got through looking at that quilt, ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘if I saw you coming out of Walmart, I never would never have guessed that you could make such lovely things.’ So, that started me thinking about how–how I should look in order to make people aware of the fact that I make beautiful things. I thought that was amusing.” On what makes a great quilt: “Well, the visual impact of a quilt. I think is important. Interesting value changes in material that is selected. That is another advance. You used to have red material, green material. Now you have tone on tone. All types of patterns that you have. I particularly enjoy the color, and it’s always fascinating to see what beautiful quilting can do to a relatively ordinary looking product.” 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 …
by Quilt Alliance | May 30, 2014 | On this Day in History Quilts series
On this day in 1913, a New York socialite named Mary Phelps Jacob received a patent for her invention of the modern brassiere, a streamlined alternative to the unhealthy and painful corset. Mary Givens Pickel of Bloomsbury, New Jersey, hand pieced and hand quilted this Crazy Quilt in 1930 from a variety of fabrics including scraps from fabric used to make her corsets. The record in includes this note: “Quiltmaker had a back problem and had her corsets made by a seamstress. This quilt was made from the corset fabric scraps.” The quilt was documented by Pickel’s son in 1997 as part of the Heritage Quilt Project of New Jersey, Inc., and was included in the book “Herstory:Quilts of Hunterdon County,” p. 30. 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://inventors.about.com/od/bstartinventions/a/brassiere.htm Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
by Quilt Alliance | May 29, 2014 | On this Day in History Quilts series
On this day in 1848, Wisconsin entered the union as the 30th state. The territory had passed from French to British to American control starting in 1634, when the area was a major center of fur trade. Wisconsin citizens finally approved statehood so they could gain from federal programs that were helping neighboring Midwestern to prosper. This Mexican Rose Variation quilt was made by an unknown quilter around 1870 in Wisconsin. According to the Quilt Index record: “It was donated to the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts by Nancy Stecker. Her husband found it inside a trunk he took from the Town of Cedarburg Dump in the 1970s. The appliqued border on this quilt is very similar to the border on the other quilt found in the trunk.” It was documented by the museum during the Wisconsin Quilt History Project in 2009. 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/wisconsin-enters-the-union Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
