by Quilt Alliance | Sep 15, 2013 | QSOS Spotlight, Uncategorized
In just under 2 weeks, the Quilt Alliance will headed to New York City for our Quilters Take Manhattan event. We’re busy preparing for the event, so we’re definitely in a New York state of mind! It seemed only fitting that we shine this week’s Q.S.O.S. Spotlight on New York Beauty quilts. There were a number of Q.S.O.S. interviews that featured a quilt made with New York Beauty blocks and even more that had a story about tacking this beauty of a block! Jeri McKay shares a red and white New York Beauty made by her great-great-grandmother. It’s both a stunning quilt and a symbol of Jeri’s life as a New Yorker! “Okay, that was made by my great great grandmother Edna Frances Sanders Carrell. And it was passed on to me by my aunt who had a few of her quilts. I’m the only one now that has one of her quilts in the family. We never knew what happened to the others. She gave them to friends, but not to family at the time. It’s a New York Beauty and I found that I was given that in California, where I was born and raised. But the New York Beauty was not in a state that any of my family ever lived in. And it turned out that I lived the last half of my life in New York. And so it was really quite amazing how certain quilt patterns I have picked through my life, which I’ll probably mention later have turned out to be very portentous in what has happened in my future.” New York City might be bustling, but it was the natural world that inspired Jean Wells Keenan’s New York Beauty! “Well I am kind of obsessed with gardening at the moment. I love to garden and Ihave always been a real outdoor person and like hiking and all of that and have been tuned into nature so I think most of my quilts have a feeling coming from nature because that is where I get inspired from. And I think what has happened with me personally is that you see things in nature that you might not be able to think up yourself like color combinations because it works there then it is going to work in a quilt so I really let that be my guide. And I don’t think I could have done this quilt had I not been a gardener and really tuned into the subject matter that inspired me.” Lucinda Mayan combined a 19th century pattern with a celebration of the upcoming 21st century: “It’s called the “Millennium Beauty.” It’s a New York Beauty design. I think that’s where all those little points get their name. It has eight millennium prints throughout the quilt. In the center the fabric has “Millennium” in fourteen different languages. It was just a way of expressing the year 2000 and it’s coming. I can’t believe it’s the year 2000, but it is. I quilted for a long time, and it was challenging. I wanted something that would challenge me. I like the traditional quilts, especially when you look at some of the older quilts. They have so much work and detail. I’m amazed at what they did years ago. You can still look back at them and appreciate what they did. I don’t know that we’ve gotten any better at what we’re doing. We’ve gotten faster. We’ve gotten more accurate ways of making our pieces, but what they did was just wonderful. As soon as I saw this one I thought, ‘Oh, I’d like to make that.’ When the challenge came I thought, ‘Well, this is what I want to do.’ I love fabric. I appreciate it. So I wanted a design where you could appreciate the fabric and what the artist did to design it. I just took the 2000 theme and went with it.” Interested in reading more? You can find more quilt stories at the Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories page on the Alliance’s site! Posted by Emma Parker Project Manager, Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories…
by Quilt Alliance | Sep 13, 2013 | On this Day in History Quilts series
On this day in 1814, Francis Scott Key wrote a poem that was later set to music and, in 1931, became America’s national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner. Key’s inspiration was a lone U.S. flag flying over Fort Henry after bombardment by the British during the War of 1812: “And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.” Mary Tayloe Lloyd Key, wife of Frances Scott Key, hand pieced, hand appliqued and hand embellished this 109” x 109” counterpane titled “Mariner’s Compass and Chips and Whetstones” between 1835-1850. The quilt is now in the permanent collection of the DAR Museum. The quilt was included in an exhibit titled “Quilts from a Young Country” at the 2008 International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas. View this quilt on The Quilt Index to read more about its history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view. Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/key-pens-star-spangled-banner Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
by Quilt Alliance | Sep 12, 2013 | On this Day in History Quilts series
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 read more about its history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view. Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/jfk-marries-jacqueline-bouvier Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
by Quilt Alliance | Sep 11, 2013 | Not Fade Away 2013 conference, QSOS
Today on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I’d like to share video footage of the Quilters’ S.O.S. – Save Our Stories (Q.S.O.S.) interview with pioneering fabric designer, quilter, teacher and entrepreneur Jinny Beyer conducted by eQuilter.com co-owner Luana Rubin at our Not Fade Away conference held July 20, 2013. Q.S.O.S. is the Quilt Alliance’s oral history project about quiltmakers. Volunteers all over the U.S. and abroad have interviewed more than 1,200 quiltmakers for this project since 1999. The collection is presented via written transcripts and photographs on the Quilt Alliance website and is permanently archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. On occasion, we videotape Q.S.O.S. interviews to demonstrate how powerful these interviews are how important the project is. Watch these interviews along with other stories of quilts and quiltmakers on our Quilt Alliance Youtube channel. All Q.S.O.S. interviewees are asked to bring with them a “touchstone” object (usually a quilt) that has a special meaning to them. Some people choose to bring their first quilt, some bring their first award-winner, and others choose quilts associated with life events–celebration, comfort, love and loss. Jinny’s touchstone quilt, titled “Windows,” is a large hand-pieced and hand-quilted mosaic quilt made from fabrics she designed, inspired by Italian floor designs and in response to the terrible events of 9/11. On the morning of September 11, 2001, Beyer was packing for a trip to Italy to gather inspiration for a quilt to be shared at her annual quilt seminar when a friend phoned to let her know of the attacks. Her trip was canceled and Beyer learned that a good friend had been lost in the Pentagon crash. Regrouping, she began to design a mosaic quilt that would feature the colors and icons that become so prevalent in media coverage of the events–the ash and dust of the wreckage, and the American flag. Jinny shares the story on her website here. Watch the Q.S.O.S. interview to hear Jinny’s story. [youtube=http://youtu.be/fQ90mdE_9q4] Anyone can download the Q.S.O.S. manual and interview a quiltmaker in their community. Volunteers work independently to add interviews to Q.S.O.S. sub projects, including 43 state projects, 14 organizations (museums, institutions, regional quilt groups), 8 guilds and 9 country projects. Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
by Quilt Alliance | Sep 11, 2013 | On this Day in History Quilts series
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. View this quilt on The Quilt Index to read more about its history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view. Source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/attack-on-america Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
