They say everything is bigger in Texas, and they might be right! At the end of October, the Quilt Alliance visited the International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas. It was the festival’s 40th anniversary–its Ruby Jubilee–and there were more quilts than ever before. With all those quilts and quiltmakers in one place, it was a perfect location to capture some Go Tell It at the Quilt Show videos… lots of them! We filmed the stories of over 100 quilts this year in Houston! We hope to have all of the videos on our YouTube channel soon, but in the mean time, kick off your weekend with this sneak peek: Flora Joy, Viewer’s Choice winner: Marisela Rumberg: Sandra Lauterbach: Candice Phelan: Look for more Go Tell It at the Quilt Show videos from the International Quilt Festival…
On this day in 1982, the Vietnam Memorial, designed by Yale University architecture student Maya Lin, was dedicated in Washington, D.C. The monument is a simple v-shaped black granite wall inscribed with the names of 57,939 Americans who died in the war, arranged in order of the date of their death versus their rank. This Double Irish Chain Crib Quilt was entirely handmade by an unknown quiltmaker in 1830 and was purchased for the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum from Kathi LaTourette of Evergreen, Colorado through memorial donations for Staff Seargant Joshua Ryan Hager, the son of a museum member who was killed while serving in Iraq in 2007. LaTourette lost her first husband in the Vietnam War and had a son who also served in Iraq. RMQM is so pleased to house this crib quilt as a symbol of a mother’s love for her child, and in keeping with that, as a symbol of new life that each child begins. Last, in tribute, that we may be reminded always, that mothers before, in the present, and mothers still to come, have and will lose their children to war. 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/vietnam-veterans-memorial-dedicated Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
On this day in 1954, Ellis Island shuts its doors. The immigration gateway that opened in 1892 processed more than 12 million people with a peak occurring from 1892-1924. The island was name for its owner in the 1770’s, Samuel Ellis. This Navy Signature fundraising quilt was made by the Ladies Auxiliary, Fleet Reserve Association, Unit No. 5 in Norfolk, Virginia between 1941-42. It contains 35 blocks and over 400 embroidered names, including that of NYC Mayor Fiorella Laguardia. From the age of 25-28 Laguardia, whose father was Italian and whose mother was Jewish of Austrian heritage, worked as an interpreter for the U. S. Immigration Services at Ellis Island. Karen Biedler Alexander of Lopez Island, Washington, owns the quilt and contributed her photos and research to the Quilt Index as part of the Signature Quilt Pilot 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/ellis-island-closes Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
On this day in 1918, World War I (also known as the Great War) ended on the 11 a.m. when German forces, low on manpower and supplies and facing certain invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies outside of Compiegne, France. The war left nine million soldiers dead and 21 million wounded, and at least five million civilians dies from disease, starvation or exposure. In honor of Veteran’s Day I’d like to spotlight two quilts and their makers whose work is documented in the Quilt Index, one made by a solider and one made in honor of a military nurse. Levi Griswold of Yarrow, Missouri machine and hand pieced this Schoolhouse Variation quilt sometime between 1890-1925 and his aunt hand quilted it. From this Quilt Index record, contributed by the State Historical Society of Iowa: “Levi made the quilt when he was about 15 years old. He was awarded Distinguished Service Cross in WW I where he was killed in action.” Quiltmaker Ann Holmes from Asheville, North Carolina, made “Thank You Clara Barton” as her entry to the Quilt Alliance’s “Home Is Where the Quilt Is” contest in 2012. Ann’s artist’s statement: “It is amazing all that she accomplished for our country. Establishing a public school; “Angel of the Battlefield” during the Civil War; spent four years to identify over 22,000 missing soldiers; established the American Red Cross and served as president for 23 years; at 83, president of National First Aid Association. She certainly patched many lives together! Her work was not considered women’s work and never had the right to vote. Clara died in 1912.” View these quilts on The Quilt Index to find out (just click on each image above)! Read more about their 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/world-war-i-ends Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
This Sunday’s Q.S.O.S. Spotlight is a few days late, but we have a very special quilt to share in honor of today, Veterans Day in the US. When Pam Neil’s son Scott was deployed to Afghanistan after September 11, 2001, she decided to make a quilt for him and add one square for every day he was gone. Scott’s children, friends and extended family wrote messages on each block, which grew, square by square, each day Scott was gone. Pam shared the quilt in a 2009 Q.S.O.S. interview: Well, the name of this quilt is “Scott’s Victory Quilt”and he named it sort of tongue in cheek. When the events of September 11, 2001 occurred, Scott was in the Army Special Forces and he was a first responder to Afghanistan after those attacks in New York. I told him that it was more danger than we knew he had ever been in before knowing that he was going to Afghanistan. I think the country in general was in shock during that time and we just didn’t know what to expect with his going over there. But because of that I said, ‘Scott, I really don’t know what to do to help you, but I’m going to make a quilt while you’re gone. We’ll put a block in it for every day you’re gone so that you will know without a doubt that we thought about you every single day and that we did not just become complacent about your being over there.’ We chose to do this quilt as a memory quilt and we used Pigma markers to actually write messages on the blocks each day. The pattern is a half square triangle, a very simple quiltmaking pattern. The construction method or technique is called quilt-as-you-go [all three layers are sewn at once.] and while I developed the specific construction plan for this quilt, I’m pretty sure I was influenced at the time by a book written by Georgia Bonesteel. And I forget the name of her book, but it was a book about quilt-as-you-go methods. The blocks I did by machine and we wrote messages on the blocks and then all the quilting was done by hand and then each block was added day by day and row by row. We chose to start the blocks in the center of the quilt and then we added the rows in a clockwise fashion around to build out from the center and the reason we did that was because we didn’t know how long Scott was going to be deployed. He could have been deployed 2 years. He could have been deployed 2 months or God forbid, he could have been gone 2 weeks and come home in a box. We just really did not know how big this quilt was gonna be so we started in the center. The quilt is almost a play by play of the war and in many cases it documents things that were going on in the family like his dad’s 60th birthday, his brother being deployed in the Navy reserves and there was even a proposal of marriage documented in this quilt. It was signed by his children, his siblings, his cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and a couple of strangers that he didn’t even know that were friends of the family. There are even some secret messages in this quilt that some people wrote on the seams of the quilt and I’ve never told Scott where they are or what they say. I only told him that someday I might tell him. It just really documents a whole lot that was going on in our lives. That first deployment Scott was only gone 6½ months and he’s fine. I should say that he did come home and he was gone about 6½ months for that deployment but a couple of weeks before he was due to come home, he was able to let us know that and so we planned the edges of the quilt. The borders we actually sent out to California to his grandmother, who is Lucille, my mother-in-law. She quilted those and sent them back and they became part of the quilt too and then the top and bottom borders that you’ll see were actually signed by people who came to his coming home party when he got home. And because we had done it in a quilt as you go fashion, the quilt was done just a couple of weeks after he came home even though it was all hand quilted. If I had made the quilt top and then quilted it after the fact, he would have had to wait for it probably 6 months or more. Pam also recorded an audio ‘postscript’, sharing a bit about Scott and the quilt since her interview in 2009, and how this quilt provided comfort in a difficult time: 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…
