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1780s Swatch Books & a Pocket Pair
Jeanine Head Miller, Curator of Domestic Life at the Henry Ford Museum, showed me this lovely pair of pockets in their collection. The catalog dates them to "Circa 1820." They are initialed and...
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Celebrating Ellen Garrison Clark
Ellen Garrison Jackson Clark (1823-1892)Something good is happening in Altadena, California on June 19th. I'm really pleased to have contributed to it (in a small way.) The story began with my quilt...
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Flora Delanica #9: Poppy and Botanizing
Flora Delanica #9 Corn Poppy (Papaver rheus) by Becky BrownThe corn poppy recalls some giants of early botanical sciences and their friendship with Mary Granville Delany.Daniel Carlsson Solander (1733...
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1912: The Old Quilt #1
 "Sunbonnet Lassies" by Marie WebsterLadies' Home Journal, August, 1912English writer Virginia Woolf remembered: "On or around December 1910, human character changed." She was talking about modernism...
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1912: The Old Quilt #2
Photo taken in 1912 from the Lund family in Taos, New Mexico.Arizona's star was the 48th, added in February, 1912. New Mexico was added a month earlier in January. We've been looking at quilts...
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1912: The Old Quilt #3
 1912 Mary Fairs?Third in a series trying to figure out what Marie Webster was looking at when she began publishing quilt designs --- her series of "New Patchwork Quilts" at the end of 1911.One reason...
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Dutch Rose in a Civil War Sampler
Quilt made at New York City's Cooper-Union art school fora soldier's hospital bed, about 1865.Photo by Jenny Novinsky for Electric Quilt.The quilt is the inspiration for the prints in my latest Moda...
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Chickens Fair & Fowl
Attributed to Laura Adye Whicher (1801-1875), IndianaCollection of the D.A.R. MuseumLaura was born in Vermont, spent many years in New Yorkand went west to Indiana where this quilt was probably...
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Kentucky Cherry Tree Quilts #1
 Collection: Huntington (West Virginia) Museum84" x 103"An impressive quilt recorded in the West Virginiaproject, photo from the Quilt...
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Kentucky Cherry Tree Quilts #2
 Attributed to Emma Bridges (1842-1888) Henderson or Jefferson County, KentuckyBingham/Miller CollectionYesterday we looked at the Wilhoit family's Cherry Tree quilt.Here's a twin.The Bridges quilt was...
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Kentucky Cherry Tree Quilts #3
 In the last two posts we looked at Cherry Tree quilts foundin Kentucky.Here is a third:Also in the collection of Louisville's Speed MuseumQuilt attributed to Virginia Mason Ivey (1828-? )Logan County,...
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Kentucky Cherry Tree Quilts: #4
We've been looking at three mid-19th-century Cherry Tree quilts from Kentuckywith nearly identical trees and similar stuffed quilting.One is in the files of the West Virginia Quilt Project, attributed...
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Arkansas Ozarks---Cabins & Quilts
Basket quilt attributed to Sarah Matthews, Enola, Arkansas, about 1912Probably this Sarah Ann Garrett Matthews (1833-1913)The quilt photos are from the 1987 book Arkansas Quilts: Arkansas Warmth by the...
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Tile Quilts: A Word in Edgewise
 Wendy Turnbull's A Bird for All SeasonsAbout a dozen years ago everybody around here was in the throes of a tile quilt revival. Carol Gilham Jones and Bobbi Finley were working on their book Tile...
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Flora Botanica #10: Cornflower
Flora Delanica #10: Blue Bottle Cornflower (Centaurea Cyanus) byBecky BrownWe could use a little blue vegetation in our sampler.Friend Horace Walpole described Mary Delany  at 74 as the inventor of...
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Remembering Barb Adams of Blackbird Designs
Barb Adams (1951-2021)Â by a Kansas City Star artistVery sad to see that old friend Barb Adams left us in a blaze of fireworks onthis past Fourth of July---as long-time design partner Alma Allen...
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Flora Delanica Posts 2020-21 Free Patterns
 Heidi Kapszukiewicz's blocksFlora Delanica block of the monthIn October, 2021 we began a 12-block applique series inspired by the paper collages of 18th-century artist Mary Granville Delany. Free...
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Sunny Yellow Dyes in QuiltMania
 Quilt with Mineral Yellow Dye (Chrome Orange)from my collection.I have an article in the current QuiltMania (#144-July & August)It's always a pleasure to work for editor and publisher Carol...
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Paper Needlebooks
 I used to collect these post-World-War-II needlebooks when I spent my spare time in thrift stores, paying a quarter or even more. The graphics were weird and entertaining.Often depicting sewing as a...
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Shopping for Quilts 300 Years Ago
Silk quilt attributed to Marseilles, France. 1750-1770Kathryn Berenson CollectionInternational Quilt Museumhttps://www.internationalquiltmuseum.org/quilt/20080400145Quilts made in Marseilles were sold...
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