Barbara Brackman's MATERIAL CULTURE

Yayoi Kusama: Thanks for her Vision

2026-09-01T06:00:00.000-05:00

Yayoi Kusama died recently at the age of 97 in Japan. She was an artist focused on a figure---the circle. Her pumpkins were genius. Here's a tribute in some quilts she might have enjoyed.

The pictures have no information with them, just things I have saved over the

years as I am a fan of dots myself.

Stella Rubin's Inventory

See an earlier post on her.

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2012/03/dots-very-nice.html

Text & Textiles: Embroidery at the Asylum

2026-08-24T06:00:00.000-05:00

Lorina Bulwer

A look at textiles stitched in mental hospitals over the past 100 plus years. Lorina Bulwer of England had a lot to say and it looks like a lot of time and thread. This record of her thoughts is one of several finished pieces.

Lorina Bulwer

Collection of Norwich Castle

Agnes Richter had similar ambitions embellishing a finished piece of clothing---her institutional straight jacket---with her opinions and perhaps delusions.

A patient identified only as Myrllen created an embroidered

patchwork coat at a Knoxville asylum.

Collection Tennessee State Museum

Garment made by Myrllen

Arthur Bispo do Rosário (1911–1989), Brazil

https://rawvision.com/blogs/articles/the-finery-of-art-brut?

Art school project by Londonite Kate Daudy, a poem....

...perhaps inspiring New York's Representative Alexandria Ocasio

Cortez's outfit for the 2021 Met Gala.

British artist Madge Gill (1882–1961)

Madge Gill was not incarcerated or did she use words but a similar obsessiveness is evident in her textiles. She also produced many fanciful drawings on paper (a more mainstream art form that may contribute to high prices for her female-oriented work.) The photo is from Spitalsfield Life.

A piece of Gill's embroidery set a new auction record when it sold for $120,650 at Christie’s New York on February 26, 2026.

https://museumcrush.org/the-art-of-madge-gill-and-myrninerest-the-spirit-who-possessed-her/#google_vignette

See another:

https://newsletter-prinzhorn.ukl-hd.de/exhibitions/aktuell/precious-item-of-the-week/handkerchief/?L=1

Kentucky Regional Design & The '33 Fair #2

2026-08-12T06:00:00.000-05:00

Design for trapunto or stuffed work

Judges & the 1st Prize winner at 1933's Chicago World's Fair

Final Judges: Sue Roberts of Sears, Anne Orr and Mary McElwain, quilt pattern designers, and Beth Burnett of the Art Institute of Chicago. The stuffed work leaf quilted in the spaces between the stars must have impressed them.

Merikay Waldvogel and I have been studying the '33 fair and its quilt contest for years. See the bottom for posts on various aspects. We have come across many surprises and one of them is the history of the stuffed quilting at the top of the page, a compound leaf branch with feather-like leaflets.

Stuffed work quilting is unusual. One place we see more of it is in the hills of Tennessee, Kentucky and places settled by women coming from those states.

Kentucky silk star in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

attributed to sisters Ellen Norton Littlejohn and Margaret Morton Bibb,

made before the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation when the

Mortons were enslaved in Logan County.

So far two silk trapunto quilts are attributed to the women, the second is in the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian.

And we see variations on the quilting design in other quilts before the prizewinning quilt pattern was published by Mountain Mist in the mid-20th century.

Mountain Mist batting wrapper showing their Star of the Bluegrass

When the Caden sisters commissioned a quilt for the contest they must have decided on a typical Kentucky design. Margaret Caden, whose name was on the entry, did not make the prizewinner but hired contract needleworkers to do the stitching, etc. and never shared credit or cash with them.

It's not only the hired quilting that is indicative of Kentucky regional design but the star design seems to be too. Stars pieced of diamonds seem among the most common of quilts. But I'm surprised to find this particular arrangement is rather uncommon---before the 1933 contest.

Stella Rubin's Inventory

Corner of a mid-19th-century quilt with BlockBase pattern #3772: Four diamonds in each star point,

an uncommon pattern at the time. Such stars usually had 9 diamonds or more per point.

The Morton sisters quilt at the Smithsonian also is a star with four diamonds. The Met's has the more common arms of nine diamonds.

Silk quilt from the Eyestone family in the Illinois State Museum, last half 19th century.

Donor's mother lived in Kentucky.

After publicity about the winner in 1933 one finds many stars with a four-patch of diamonds in each point, some made from the popular Mountain Mist design.

Indiana Project & the Quilt Index
http://www2.matrix.msu.edu/~quilti/fulldisplay.php?kid=68-104-A3D

Copy of the winning quilt by Elizabeth Nesbett Cooper of Crawfordsville, Indiana.

That new green shade was hard to find so she made good use of black.

Stuffed-work sampler by Virginia Ivey at the Speed Museum in Kentucky.

Corner of the Russellville Fair quilt by Virginia Ivey at the Smithsonian

Links:

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2026/08/kentucky-regional-design-33-fair.html
https://encyclopediaquiltpatterns.blogspot.com/2017/08/star-of-bluegrass.htm

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2013/02/online-shopping-drama.html
https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_556181
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/13884

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2019/11/southern-spin-kentucky-stars.html

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2025/02/silk-quilts-in-kentucky-source-of-silk.html

Kentucky Regional Design & the '33 Fair #1

2026-08-05T06:00:00.000-05:00

Sears, Roebuck sponsored a quilt contest at the depths of the Depression promising an enormous $1,200 first prize. Almost 25,000 quiltmakers entered. Merikay Waldvogel and I have spent years looking at the quilts, the contest and the scandal.

Color added to a 1933 sketch from Capper's Weekly of the top winner.

Stuffed work quilting & the newly fashionable shade of green

that came to define the 1930s were undoubtedly assets in the judges' eyes.

Two of the four final judges pose with their choice: Sue Roberts from Sears Publicity Department and Mary McElwain (standing) owner of a custom quilt shop in Wisconsin.

Margaret Rogers Caden of Lexington, Kentucky won the $1,000 award.

We have no color photo of her "Star of the Bluegrass" as the quilt remains missing

despite our 40 year search.

Collection of the International Quilt Museum

https://www.internationalquiltmuseum.org/quilt/19970070550

This is a copy by an unknown maker from a post-fair pattern by Mountain Mist.

Not quite the same green or skill level in the stuffed work quilting.

The stuffed work or trapunto leaf design was an important part of the winning design and its copies.

Mountain Mist sold the patterns as "Star of the Bluegrass."

Reverse of the fernlike spray between the stars

The quilter layered two fabrics and quilted the design's outline;

then added extra cotton batt through small holes to puff out the leaflets.

The scandal is that Margaret Caden whose Lexington quilt shop commissioned the handwork from several contract needleworkers did not share the glory or the cash with the women who actually did the stitching. Read our 1993 book, out of print but easily available used.

And we did an online lecture a few years ago on the topic.

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2023/03/chicagos-1933-quilt-contest-updated.html

Merikay is the keeper of the World's Fair stories. Do see her Legacy file at the Quilt Index which connects you to about 30 entries.

https://quiltindex.org/view/?type=specialcolls&kid=33-133-2

And see a post from a few years ago in which I HOPED the winning quilt was up for sale.

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2013/02/online-shopping-drama.html

Jennifer Chiaverini's Elm Creek Quilts series most recent entry The World's Fair Quilt retells the story as fiction.

In the next post more about the pattern and it's Kentucky regional links.

Purple Cottons: Chemistry & Quality

2026-07-27T06:00:00.000-05:00

Faded grapes. Surely, they were once purple.

We've been looking at purple in July in our 6KIA Facebook group

https://www.facebook.com/groups/6knowitalls

Kris Dreissen posted details of a top with different purples fading in different ways.

The seaweed stripe may have been engineered to fade in rainbow shades of brown.

The small ditsy print's spotting to brown was not planned but typical.

We looked at purple silks and wools. Purple dyes in animal fibers have been well documented in books about coal-tar, synthetic dyes. See Simon Garfield's Mauve.

Purple in the cellulosic fiber cotton, hasn't the same drama or documentation. Here's a review of our discussion about madder purple cottons:

For centuries dyers have known how to obtain a variety of colors depending on the

metal salt mordants used with madder root...

...from purples on the left to reds and browns.

The problem with purple cotton prints is they faded.

One mill had a reputation for the best purples: Thomas Hoyle & Sons' Mayfield Printworks in Manchester, England.

Collection of the Manchester School of Art

"Hoyle's Lilac"

In our Facebook posts British chemist and seamstress Carolyn Gibbs considered the causes, information expanded upon here. See her site where she teaches techniques and history.

https://www.carolyngibbsquilts.co.uk/

Hoyle's printworks were in Mayfield.

Mayfield Print Works

Mayfield, once a separate town, is now part of Manchester

The Victoria & Albert Museum has a scrap of a printed plaid Hoyle's Lilac (1810-1815) with identification stamp in the selvage. Their photo is flipped.

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O318603/textile-thomas-hoyle-and/

The Cartwright Quilt from the British Quilters Guild Collection, About 1860.

https://quiltmuseum.org.uk/collections/heritage/cartwright-hexagon-coverlet.html

Variations in purple prints are abundant in British quilts, indicating

how many scraps of lilac from Hoyle's or other mills were leftover from garment making.

In class-conscious Britain a subdued purple calico was considered the

appropriate garment for those in the lower orders, particularly servants and the poor.

Servant Hannah Cullwick's dress was probably a print in a muted shade of purple. Advice in 1860 for dressing a poor family: "The elder girl would require three frocks...Hoyle's lilac prints are the best."

What made Hoyle's purple prints best? Reporter George Dodd told us of all the steps he observed in obtaining a purple cotton at the Mayfield Printworks.

Dodd glided over several steps telling us merely that the stripe was "soaped" and the floral "cleared." Few details indeed, but it is apparently in these details that Hoyle's obtained their famous fade-resistant best seller. Carolyn was pleased to find a reference to the quality of the soap in William Crookes 1882 book Dyeing and Tissue Printing.

"The soap used must be exceedingly neutral. That used by the celebrated firm of Thomas Hoyle and Co., of Manchester, consisted of the best curd soap remelted with palm-oil, and to this simple expedient their well- known success in the production of madder-purples was mainly due."

Collector Lenna DeMarco posted her quilt from about 1850-1875 with a strange fading pattern. The center field is pieced of typical album blocks in a double pink print. The quilt is quite large for the time---94" x 98". Alternate setting squares are a double purple print, the style we might call Hoyle's Purple even though we do not know which mill printed it. Hard to see the tiny figures but it looks like a typical allover pattern of darker purple lines suggesting a floral.

The unusual fading effect:

The border applique has consistently faded more than the setting squares of the same print. The first thought: The border was subject to a different amount of light which has an effect on these purples. One often sees a faded border where the sunshine hits the quilt through the window daily. But this border has faded in similar fashion on all four sides.

Carolyn Gibbs' remarks on seeing Lenna's quilt: "Very Strange." And indeed it is.

Dana Auctions

So what has happened??? It may be that the prints' figures are identical but color is slightly different as shown in this sample book with two close purples as two options.

Or it may be that one fabric is a pirated version of the other made by a different mill. Perhaps the copyright ran out on the original and the design was in the public domain. It seems the American quiltmaker used two dye lots, varied runs of the same print, maybe both from the same mill with subtle differences. Or it may be the yardage was printed on different days and under different supervision.

And using different soap.

British Quilters Guild Collection

Thanks, Carolyn, for the careful reading and analysis.

Iris Wreath: Preview Pattern

2026-07-19T06:00:00.000-05:00

Iris Garland by Hannah Haynes Headlee, Topeka, Kansas, about 1935.

Collection of the Kansas Museum of History.

https://www.kansasmemory.gov/item/209280

We've been looking at purple over at the 6KnowItAlls Facebook group, showing off vintage quilts of silk, wool and cotton and discussing the history of the dye in various fibers. Fast purple cotton was once hard to find and the colors were rather muted.

Ask to join the group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/6knowitalls

Detail of the Iris Garland

After World War I, however, a variety of colorfast purple solids became available.

That rainbow of shades must have been an inspiration to quilters

working between the wars, among them Kansan Hannah Haynes Headlee,

an associate of the Emporia applique artists, one of whom used Rose Kretsinger's pattern

to create another purple masterpiece in the Orchid Wreath below.

Orchid Wreath by Ifie Espey Arnold, Emporia, Kansas

Collection of the Helen F. Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas

I combined Rose's Wreath design and Hannah's Iris in a simpler, smaller floral quilt, the Iris Wreath. The pattern was published in my book Making History. Quilts & Fabric from 1890-1970.

My version of Rose's wreath with Hannah's blossoms.

Pat Moore showed her Iris Wreath in 2023

Lori Kukuk, who did the long-arm quilting on mine, appliqued her own

and gave it some of her elegant quilting.

Roseanne Smith's Work in Progress

Ilyse Moore used a dark background & tightened up the circle.

As I say, the pattern is in my 2008 book Making History,

still available from C&T Publishing as a digitally produced book for $20.99.

https://ctpub.com/products/making-history-quilts-fabric-from-1890-1970-digital-download

I see that in the Amazon listing for used copies the preview gives you the pattern right there to download. So what the heck. Here it is: Six pages of Iris Wreath.

Print these out on 8-1/2 by 11" sheets.

Hope you are inspired.

Emporians would envy us our batiks.

Hot Spots

2026-07-10T06:00:00.000-05:00

Statistically July 17th is the hottest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere.

Wade Hall Collection. Kentucky

After that date the average temperature goes down. But that's still a long way off.

Quilts from a hot spot in Kansas

From Mark French. Is it pieced or printed?

Most of these are from online auctions.

Our Quilts to International Quilt Museum

2026-07-02T06:00:00.000-05:00

Block from War & Pieces

designed by Barbara Brackman and Karla Menaugh,

stitched by Karla, hand quilted by Anne Thomas 1998-1999

Karla Menaugh & I are thrilled to announce that the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska, will be accessioning eight quilts that served as models for our Sunflower Pattern Co-operative pattern company, which we began in the late 1990s.

War & Pieces

Cactus & Cottonwood

Designed by Barbara Brackman, Machine pieced and appliqued by Karla Menaugh,

Machine quilted by Lori Kukuk, 2004

We employed about a dozen Kansas City area quilters and designers in our updated cottage industry, reviving a traditional economic model crafted by KC companies such as Aunt Martha's Studios, Ruby Short McKim Studios, and Workbasket magazine in the 1930s.

Those entrepreneurs formalized the age-old system of women earning a living in cottage industries with sewing and needlework. Our Sunflower stitchers included mothers of young children, part-time workers looking for more income, and innovative people who loved to sew.

Primitive Paradise Designed by Barbara Brackman,

Machine pieced and appliqued by Karla Menaugh,

Machine quilted by Sharyn Rigg, 2000

Sunflower style was retro with a twist. We looked back at antique quilts for inspiration, updating the look with new color schemes, innovative layouts, and stylized redrafts of typical patterns like vines and stars. Sunflower Pattern Co-op’s patterns and books were popular, aided by my fabric design work for United Notions/Moda fabrics with quilts stitched in the same season that new collections of cotton prints were released.

Detail of Primitive Paradise

We designed many of the quilts with Barbara's Moda fabric line available at the time and commissioned needlewomen such as Pam Mayfield, Shauna Christensen, Jean Stanclift, and Shirlene Wedd to stitch designs or create their own patterns. Tops went to machine quilters Lori Kukuk, Jeanne Zyck, and Rosie Mayhew plus an occasional hand quilter like Anne Thomas.

Oriental Poppy, Designed & hand appliqued by Barbara Brackman,

Pieced and machine quilted by Pamela Mayfield, 2010

Sweet Harmony Designed by Barbara Brackman,

Machine pieced & appliqued by Karla Menaugh & Jean Stanclift.

Machine quilted by Lori Kukuk, 2002

We offered several crib size quilts based on antique examples.

Midnight Garden Designed by Barbara Brackman,

Machine appliqued by Karla Menaugh

Machine quilted by Lori Kukuk, 2003

The quilts going to the International Quilt Museum represent several eras in United States history. Some, like our War & Pieces sampler and Midnight Garden, reflect themes found in Civil War quilts. Others were inspired by the 1876 U.S. Centennial and the work of Emporia, Kansas, designer Rose Kretsinger and her neighbors in the mid-twentieth century.

Oriental Poppy Pattern inspired by Rose Kretsinger's in the

Helen F. Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas

New Century Garden Designed by Barbara Brackman,

Machine appliqued by Karla Menaugh

Machine quilted by Lori Kukuk, 2002

New Century Garden is a teaching tool for machine appliqué, starting with an easy to-sew block and continuing with more challenging motifs.

New Century Garden

Juniper & Mistletoe

Juniper & Mistletoe, Designed by Karla Menaugh & Barbara Brackman,

Machine appliqued by Karla Menaugh.

Machine quilted by Lori Kukuk 2006

And Juniper & Mistletoe was just for fun as we love the variety of trees and birds we see in antique quilts---a forest of light hearted inspiration. We are pleased to keep this small collection of quilts together as a reflection of the contemporary home sewing industry, an important thread of needlework in women’s history.

Morris Muse: Elizabeth Burden

2026-06-28T06:00:00.000-05:00

Angel with Cymbals

Embroidered by Elizabeth Burden (1841 – 1924)

(Perhaps a fitting portrait of the embroiderer)

Elizabeth (Bessie) Burden was another of the women embroidery artists, the Morris Muses who worked with designer William Morris.

Morris Muse fabrics in a pattern named Brunswick Star

by Ruth Finley and Comfort magazine. BlockBase+ #3805.

In the 1930s the Grandma Dexter pattern company called it

Rolling Stone, a good place to start with a pattern

for Muse Elizabeth Burden.

As William Morris's wife's sister Bessie seems to have played an unusual role in the needlework partnership, designing her own panels with an emphasis on human (& angelic figures) rather than floral abstractions.

Elizabeth and younger sister Jane Burden Morris were born in Oxfordshire, England into a lower strata of the hierarchy of class-conscious Britain---the working poor. Censuses list father Robert Burden as a servant and a groom for horses in Oxford. With wife Ann Maizey Burden he had four children, Mary Ann, William, Elizabeth and Jane. Only the youngest two lived into adulthood.

Oxford, Near St. Ebbes Church

Jane's unusual beauty caught the attention of

William Morris's set of young artists. She and Morris married in 1859.

In 1865 father Robert died. Apparently Bessie had been living with him (mother Ann who lived until 1871 is unaccounted for) and at his death Bessie moved in with her younger sister, husband and two girls. Six years later the extended family moved to Queen's Square where their home shared the space with the company's retail shop.

Like the other muses Bessie embroidered for the shop but few of her pieces---patterns, kits or finished textiles----have been identified.

26 Queen Square by Amédée Forestier

published in William Morris: His Homes & Haunts, 1909

Elizabeth Burden's style: Three panels with design attributed to both Morris and Edward Burne-Jones,

exhibited in 1888 at the Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society.

Bessie was hired to teach embroidery at the Royal School of Needlework in 1873 when she was in her early thirties and moved out of the Morris home to Russell Square, perhaps because her sister's family had moved to a smaller residence.

The Royal School's exhibit at Philadelphia's Centennial Expo 1876

Two years later she was back teaching at the RSN in time to supervise the

school's display at America's centennial birthday fair, the

1876 Philadelphia Exhibition

Walter Crane is credited with design for this hanging

that is said to have been shown in Philadelphia. Embroiderer's

name unknown. Hanging's current whereabouts also unknown.

Candace Thurber Wheeler (1827–1923)

Embroidered furnishings designed by Bessie received a Certificate of Award, inspiring Americans by "sowing the seed" here for art embroidery, according to designer Candace Wheeler who organized New York's Society of Decorative Art based on the London model.

Bessie who relied upon this tapestry stitch was honored by

the school's renaming it the "Burden Stitch" in the RSN’s Handbook of Embroidery\

Lynn Hulsey, expert on Morris embroidery and Elizabeth Morris's biographer, has found comments that paint her as "a prickly professional who refused to compromise her standards, and who was less than adroit in managing her aristocratic employers" at the RSN: Director Lady Victoria Welby and the important Royal patron Princess Helena of Schleswig Holstein, Queen Victoria's daughter.

Lady Victoria Welby, Director of the Royal School

& Princess Helena, the major Royal Patron

Miss Burden and Mrs. Welby, as she was called at the school, disagreed about whether student work should be labeled as that of their teacher. Bessie had a point that that such a credit could make her look bad but she did not make her point well, writing a letter to her supervisor that resulted in the school firing her. The letter has not survived but Mrs. Welby sent a copy to the Princess who was rather indignant. No one could be more class conscious than a Princess and Helena was quite accurate in her analysis. Bessie was neither a lady nor an educated person.

"As to Miss Burden, I think her behaviour simply outrageous. I never read so cool or impertinent a letter. It shows she can have no ladylike feelings for no lady or decently educated person would have penned such a letter."

Miss Burden's skills, however, motivated the school to rehire her two years later despite her "behaving so badly," as RSN founder Madeline Wyndham recalled. "She is the only person who knows how to work the crewel work." And so Elizabeth resumed teaching. She did not stay long past the Philadelphia Exhibition and later in life moved on to Surrey, about 30 miles south of London, probably for a teaching position, where she died in 1924.

The letter episode was probably just one instance of her temperamental nature. Her brother-in-law

criticized her "troublesome & complicated accounts concerning designs, materials, & wages" while working for him. He'd earlier written a friend that living with her on Oxford Street was difficult:

"I have been a good deal in the house here - not alone, that would have been pretty well - but alone with poor Bessy. I must say it is a shame, she is quite harmless and even good, and one ought not to be irritated by her - but O my God what I have suffered from finding [her] always there at meals & the like!"

Souvenir of household harmony: In 1895 Morris gave Bessie a

three-volume set of Shelley's poetry printed by his Kelmscott Press.

Patterns for Muse Bessie Burden

Notes of Harmony

"At last by notes of household harmony

They quite forget their loss of liberty."

Shakespeare, Henry VI

A new design inspired by a 1930s pattern from Hubert VerMehren.

Here's a pattern for the fan & star: Notes of Harmony.

Or a four-patch dot. Any patchwork block finishing to 4-1/2" should fit in the 18" block.

And a floral for Bessie in applique or embroidery.

"Bloomsbury" drawn from a Royal School design.

Print this rather free-form pattern on an 8-1/2 x 11" sheet.

Flag Day

2026-06-14T06:00:00.000-05:00

June 14th has been celebrated as Flag Day for about 125 years, recalling the date in 1777 when the rebellious colonies adopted the American ensign.

WPA poster 1939

Elizabeth Holmes, 1869, Illinois. Detail: Lincoln/Flag quilt

About 1860

Following tradition, altered flags express opinion.

The flag is a great graphic, easily recognizable and composed of pattern that translates while keeping its identity.

One reason the image works so well in the needlework of resistance

that we see today in our troubled times.

Crafty Badger

Social Justice Sewing Academy

"Veer" by Jacquie Gering

Joan Evans

Flags given to Utah politicians

Liz Havartine

Shawn Quinlan

Necessary Switch

PineappleKid8

csweb56

About 1865

Jeff Bridgman Antiques

American Revolutionary Samuel Adams wrote in the Boston Gazette:

The patriot's purpose is to "keep the attention of his fellow citizens awake to their grievances, and not suffer them to be at rest, till the causes of their just complaints are removed."

Daughters of Liberty Anniversary Quilt

2026-06-10T06:00:00.000-05:00

Daughters of Liberty

Looking for a traditional patchwork design for a quilt to celebrate our 250th next month? I'll remind you again that Americans really were not stitching patchwork quilts in 1776 but here's a design to represent later decades when the United States was working out its democratic ideals after the Revolution.

The roads that led to revolt against England's rule ran throughout the colonies but Boston claims a leadership role, particularly with the local organization the Sons of Liberty, a secret and not so secret society of philosophers and activists. (Just who threw that English tea into the harbor?)

Exemplary rebels

The Sons of Liberty encouraged a trade boycott of British goods including the largest category of textiles, wool, linen and silk. In 1768 the rebels organized a boycott encouraging colonists to cultivate their own flax for linen and sheep for wool and learn to spin and weave a domestic cloth, activities Britain had discouraged in their desire to make the colonies customers rather than competition. Women responded to the men's call by organizing "spinning bees" where two or three dozen spinners worked together teaching each other techniques and producing yarn for domestic cloth.

From a Boston broadside published about 1770

Women also countered with their own organization The Daughters of Liberty in 1770. Similar goals and methods of operation included domestic production but also street activism and campaigns against merchants who ignored their demands. Mobs of men and women intimidated loyalist shop owners and warehouse keepers.

Broadsides, the influential social media of the day,

could be printed quickly and cheaply and posted on the streets.

Abigail Smith Adams wrote husband John about the "rout and noise in the town for several weeks" culminating in a mob of about 100 females who broke into a coffee warehouse and confiscated the beans as "a large concourse of men stood amazed silent spectators."

Massachusetts Historical Society Collection

Abigail Smith Adams (1744-1818)

By Benjamin Blythe, mid-1760s

Shops and warehouses that imported foodstuffs like molasses and salt as well as those vending cloth were frequent targets of the Daughters of Liberty who amazed their co-revolutionaries with bold and boisterous protests on Boston's streets.

"Boston Streets" is the name of the central patchwork pattern here, adapted from one published in 1936 in the Chicago Tribune's quilt column headed by the fictional Nancy Cabot with her prestigious Boston penname.

"Nancy" often made up stories out of whole cloth

like this one about an unlikely Boston quiltmaker before the Revolution.

The pattern is slightly familiar but the repeat is obtuse.

The sketch looks quite un-pieceable but adding seams to make the design just squares and HSTs (Half-Square Triangles) makes it easier to piece if not a historically accurate choice to represent those brazen Daughters of Liberty. The patchwork center has been fit into a format borrowed from the Copp Quilt in the Smithsonian's collection.

National Museum of American History Collection

Copp Family Framed Center Quilt

https://www.si.edu/object/1790-1810-copp-familys-framed-center-pieced-quilt%3Anmah_556289

The museum was given a large collection of textiles and furniture in the 1890s by John Brenton Copp of Stonington, Connecticut including this quilt estimated to date from the early 19th century. Fabrics of linen, silk and cotton were probably scraps and yardage from the inventory of the family textile businesses. The Copps were from Connecticut but Boston's streets do include a Copp's Hill.

The geometry here is based on units finishing to 4" square.

Pattern for Daughters of Liberty

The Central Patchwork Field

You can look at the central field of patchwork as a grid of 9 blocks, each a five-patch,

a grid of 25.

Modified Boston Streets five-patch block

Drawn in EQ8

Basic unit finishes to 4" square

Print the pattern out on an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet.

Fabrics---see the Copp quilt with its varieties of browns, pinks and blues.

Or the heck with authenticity!

It's a party. Make it red, white & blue!

Another option for a loosely historical repro quilt for the 250th.

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2026/01/american-quilt-style-democracy-blooms.html

And one from our Dutch history:

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2025/12/early-american-quilts-knickerbocker.html

Laura Wheeler/Alice Brooks & Ada Cone

2026-06-03T06:00:00.000-05:00

Newspaper quilt patterns of the 1930s were abundant with a few large syndicated companies dominating the field. Patterns appearing under the pen names Laura Wheeler and Alice Brooks were probably the most numerous. The source and the people involved have been rather mysterious as newspaper copy did not give much information on a company, designers or copywriters.

A few of my pattern collecting friends have, shall we say, opinions as to the

mindset of these fictional seamstresses. Just a bit sadistic in the promise of

"easy piecing" with twelve seams meeting in the center, for example.

https://encyclopediaquiltpatterns.blogspot.com/2020/08/alice-brooks-design.html

Representative fictional artist

You do get the feeling that the artist in many cases had never pieced a quilt in his/her life.

Wilene Smith, however, has devoted many years of serious study to figuring out the writers and artists behind the series. Her work is available on the Quilt Index at this link:

kora.quiltindex.org/files/34-136-86/41-LauraWheeler.pdf

The 1940 census found Ada at 22 living with her parents Robert & Ada Cone and four brothers on Sinclair Avenue on Staten Island. The family seems to be in the grocery business. Her occupational listing may say "Not Working" or "New Worker".

Helen Dudnik in Staunton, Virginia News Leader, June 7, 1945
(Note that the columnist’s actual name Ada L. Cone is not included.)

“Knits and purls, chains and slip stitches lazy dasies (sic) and french knots. They’re all easy when you know how. And women who don’t ask Laura Wheeler, the knit crochet, and embroider genius. An average of ten million women each year write to Laura Wheeler for instructions for knitting that baby bonnet they saw in yesterday’s newspaper. She receives more mail than some of our top-ranking Betty Grables or Lana Turners.

Recently Laura Wheeler received a letter from a grandmother who wanted her to know that within a comparatively short period of time she had ordered seventy-two patchwork quilt patterns---all created by Miss Wheeler. Grandma, as she signed herself, went on to say that she was making twelve quilts for each of her twelve granddaughters and that soon she could present the gifts to ‘her girls’ whom she knew would be delighted with them.

Laura Wheeler’s name is known to millions of newspaper readers. She is discussed by countless women everyday---over back fences, notions counters and scores of other places where women and girls congregate. In 1933 Laura Wheeler decided to close her own art studio and become the pioneer needlecraft designer in the field. When she started with George Goldsmith, his Reader Mail organization was fast becoming America’s leading newspaper dress pattern manufacturers.

One day she asked of Goldsmith, “Why should we produce only dress patterns? There are millions of women who like to knit, crochet, and embroider. Why can’t we manufacture needlecraft patterns for them?’

And so it was that Laura Wheeler gave birth to an idea which was to revolutionize the art of needlework. She gathered a staff of skilled artists and designers who set to work under her direction, creating original designs for transfer patterns to be embroidered on guest towels, pillow cases and doilies----patterns for many kinds of knitted garments---crochet patterns for centerpieces, fascinators, slippers or bootees.

She hired top-notch writers to describe step by step, clear and precise directions for each kind of stitch in a particular design. As many as ten artists work on a single pattern.

Says Laura Wheeler, ‘When a reader sees my release in her newspaper and sends 15 cents for my needlecraft pattern, it is my job to see that not only will she get it promptly but when the pattern does reach her she can be assured that there will be no need to stop and question the next step.’

Added Miss Wheeler, ‘Every one of my needlecraft patterns is fool proof so that even a novice will have no difficulty finishing the sweater, purse or rag dolls she started.’

She stresses the practicability of her feature. ‘I try to put myself in the position of the reader. She wants eye-appealing needlecraft patterns which can be made as inexpensively as possible and that is what I strive to give her.’

Laura Wheeler is a typical American woman. She is of medium height with black hair streaked with gray, sparkling dark eyes and an effervescent personality. Laura feels she is amply repaid for her life’s work of creating needlecraft patterns when those millions of letters come pouring into her office---letters from women all over the country asking for more patterns, letters from grateful readers telling of the joys her designs have brought them.
When the war is over, Laura Wheeler plans to make her needlecraft pattern feature available not only in the United States, Canada and Australia but in other European countries as well."

From Ada's Findagrave files:

"Ada Cone, 83, of Oakwood, a native Staten Islander and retired fashion designer, died Friday at Merry Heart Nursing Home in Succasunna, New Jersey. Born in Prince's Bay, she moved to Oakwood in 1961. Last February, she moved to Blairstown, New Jersey. She had been a resident of the nursing home since November. A fashion designer, Ms. Cone worked for approximately twenty years with the reader-mail division of King Features Syndicate, Manhattan. She designed clothing and sewing patterns for the "Let's Sew" segment, which appeared in newspaper comic sections around the country, including the Sunday Advance. She retired in 1985. She attended Tottenville High School. She is survived by a niece and two nephews. The funeral will be held on Tuesday, with a service at 9:30 a.m. in the Casey Funeral Home, Castleton Corners. Burial will be in Moravian Cemetery, New Dorp.
Published in the Staten Island Advance on January 7, 2001."

https://bitsofhistory.vintageknitcrochet.net/2018/05/laura-wheeler-genius-of-needlecraft.html

I've done posts on several of the patterns over the years.

See posts if you are looking for a challenging pattern:

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2020/01/alice-brooks-darn-her.html

https://encyclopediaquiltpatterns.blogspot.com/2019/01/butterfly-from-laura-wheeleralice-brooks.html

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2021/12/link-of-friendship-supply-chain.html

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2016/07/callis-question-endless-chain.html

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2018/12/crazy-wheel-of-fortune.html

https://encyclopediaquiltpatterns.blogspot.com/2021/05/setting-sun.html

https://encyclopediaquiltpatterns.blogspot.com/2020/09/lovers-knot.html

As Jeannie has commented on one of the "easy patterns:"

"On my Quilt Bucket List, someday when I WANT to do zillions of set-in seams :)"

Queen Charlotte's Crown: Centuries of Historical Inaccuracy

2026-05-25T06:00:00.000-05:00

Queen Charlotte's Crown in Morris Muse fabrics from Moda, Morris & Me

National Galleries of Scotland

Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

as England's new Queen, 1761 or 1762 by Allan Ramsey.

Several copies of this bride's portrait are in museums.

I have been wiling away my May afternoons reading for the second time Janice Hadlow's 2015 biography of the royal family of King George III and Queen Charlotte. Well written, flows nicely and historically supportable. Perfect. I'm only up to the year 1761 and Charlotte's marriage and I know things get tough. Mad King George had mental health issues, shall we say, all his life as far as I am concerned---no late onset porphyry. But they had a happy marriage for quite a while (if a few too many unhappy children).

Perhaps Ruth Finley noticed the Queen's royal headgear in the "Nuptial Crown" portrait when she wrote about a pieced quilt pattern "Queen Charlotte's Crown" in her 1929 book Old Patchwork Quilts.

Finley's block reflects the visual pairings in the "Nuptial Crown."

Queen Charlotte was the last of our Colonial queens and we still have a city named for her. Charlotte, North Carolina (The Queen City) boasts a sculptural portrait with crown in hand at the airport (no more historical basis for the statue than for Ruth Finley's block.)

Charlotte at about 20 with her eldest daughter

the Princess Royal.

The Nancy Cabot quilt column in the Chicago Tribune in 1933

must have used Finley's book for pattern copy.

The gray highlighted area is Finley-style "history."

Both book and newspaper column seem to have fabricated the whole quilt tale, as we might say, out of whole cloth.

The Cabot column modified Finley's design in a later issue,

eliminating the set-in seams.

Queen Charlotte's Crown was not a popular design. Certainly there are none that appear to have been stitched before Finley's 1929 publication date as the design is not the kind of thing one would see in the 18th century here or in England. After Finley published her pattern a few were done, probably because it a bit hard to sew and rather awkward in composition.

I found a couple of mid-20th c. quilts in the Quilt Index. The Nebraska and Iowa projects recorded some stitched soon after Finley's book was out.

Mary Schafer of Michigan decided the "historical" design would be a perfect pattern for the Bicentennial collection she was stitching before our 200th birthday in 1976. The history is the sort I was raised on: Far-fetched hypotheses, questionable research (if any evidence at all) and sweet stories designed more as propaganda than accurate accounts. (Don't look now but we are living in a revival of the attitude.)

About ten years ago we stitched a Block of the Week on the Austen family of Queen Charlotte's era and included this one.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/58240246@N07/albums/72157644301168681/

Austen Family Album

From my latest Moda collection Morris Muse, inspired by Georgann's red block and the focused cutting.

More Ideas....

Sunrise Quilts used the Nancy Cabot design recently.

Laura Conowitch at LCSCottage.wordpress.com

Blue for Charlotte's German heritage and red for her English role.

Blocks rotated

If you've been watching the streaming series Bridgerton over the past few years you

will be familiar with their plot line that Queen Charlotte was a Black woman, a concept not found in Julia Quinn's series of Bridgerton novels.

Producers and writers running the series introduced this far-fetched idea made plausible due to the skill of the casting director who matched actor Golda Rosheuvel to the Queen's portraits. Despite her award-nominated acting the historical idea is as unlikely as Rosheuvel's hair-do.

This all seems relatively harmless and perhaps a good idea by the show runners to shake up our preconceived notions

BUT

There is a big problem in the whole concept of the German Charlotte's ancestry even as an obvious fictional trope. The idea was a principle of Nazi racial bigotry, first described in a 1920s book Racial Mixture as the Basic Principle of Life by Artur Ernst Klaar (Penname: Brunold Springer) who decided the Queen's unfashionable facial features were evidence of African ancestry.

"Nordicism," the idea of a master race, was explored in several pseudo-scientific publications in the 1920s. Books like Hans F.K. Gunther's Racial Studies of the German People impressed Himmler and Hitler, informing their ideas on white supremacy threatened by "degenerate" racial mixing. Euthanasia (the Holocaust) developed from concepts of Nordicizing the population and it continues today in unfortunate American rhetoric.

Nazi leadership was delusional about how they fit Nordicism's ideals

I have worked in the movies and know the industry pretty well through friends & family. Producers feel little obligation to give a responsible point of view based on historical accuracy. Their idea has sold well; viewers enjoy the turn-around in casting and nobody recalls Nazi sources for the pseudoscience.

But don't you forget!

https://aelarsen.wordpress.com/2025/12/30/bridgerton-was-queen-charlotte-black/

Morris Muse: Catherine Raven Holiday

2026-05-19T06:00:00.000-05:00

Collection of the William Morris Gallery Waltham

Catherine (Kate) Raven Holiday (1839-1925)

by her brother Milville Raven 1861

In 1864 Kate married painter and stained-glass artist

Henry Holiday. They celebrated their 60th anniversary in 1924.

Embroidery attributed to Catherine Raven Holiday

Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Morris praised Kate's embroidery techniques and color skills. "I’d back your wife for heavy sums against all Europe at embroidery."

Silk cushion cover by Kate Holiday

Kate began embroidering Morris-designed textiles for Morris & Company in the mid-1870s. William Morris permitted her to commission the colors for silk thread from Thomas Wardle's mill and he allowed her to decide on stitches and techniques to fill the shapes, a show of trust in her talent.

To remember Kate Holiday, Morris's favorite artisan: A pieced star from BlockBase+ where the block is pictured without a name. "Holiday Fest" sounds good.

Playing with the shading

Pattern above for a 12" Block

Print 8-1/2" x 11"

APPLIQUE OR EMBROIDERY

Collection of the William Morris Gallery Waltham

Table Cover designed by William Morris

Executed by Kate Holiday

92" long

Pattern inspired by Kate's embroidered piece at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

This 1890 exhibition catalog uses the word "darned" to describe Catherine's embroidery.

National Gallery of Melbourne

Design attributed to Kate's husband Henry Holiday

Stitching to Kate

Transposed Quilts: More Ideas on the Term

2026-05-13T06:00:00.591-05:00

New York Project, Relyea family, Ulster County

A Transposed Quilt????

A few weeks ago I posted about my search for "Transposed Quilts" mentioned in agricultural fair records after 1850 or so. What did that term mean?

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2026/04/transposed-quilts.html

Since then Louise Tiemann and I have been looking for the words "Transposed Quilt" in 19th-century publications, finding some repetitive how-to copy telling us that Transposed Quilts are a rather medieval style of applique similar to what we call "intarsia" today.

Louise found this reference in an American needlework book.

The old European textile technique works best with sturdy wool fabrics.

U.S. museums have a few imported early examples but intarsia applique

(or is it piecing?) is rarely seen here.

And it certainly has little to do with the kind of needlework winning prizes at New York agricultural fairs in the 1850s, those we see described as "transposed quilts."

With no definitions apparent Louise and I examined the context in which we found the words "transposed quilt."

It may be important that we see the earliest references in upstate New York.

Typical mid-19th c. quilt in fashionable style.

Oak Leaf and Reel attributed to

Mary Hasbrouck Wilklow of Ellenville, Ulster County

New York project & the Quilt Index

Buffalo's 1857 newspaper tells us that Mrs. P. Staats won a first at the fair, topping Mrs. J. W. Brown who received a second and a third award for "Best transposed quilt." Mrs. Brown would be hard to find but Mrs. P Staats with her rather unusual Dutch name was easy to track.

Permelia Staats living at 117 Franklin in Buffalo's city center.,

Widow of Barent J. Staats.

Permelia's generation boasted several Barent Staats, one Mayor of Albany in the early 1840s. Her husband's Staats family had been in New York and earlier New Netherland for centuries with American family founders Abraham and Trijntje Staats arriving in what would become Albany in 1642.

Map of New Netherland before it became New York in the 1660s

Hudson River in red near Fort Orange--

later Albany---center of Dutch colonization.

The other clue in the context we noticed was the lack of the word "applique" in the list of style categories. It may very well be that "transposed" means appliqued. Louise found more information on Mrs. J. W. Brown's quilts identifying one as a "chintz applique' when it was entered but her prize was awarded in the "transposed quilt" category. We both think the odd term meant "applique quilt" among that group of upstate needlewomen who were familiar with three types of quilted bedcovers, described below in the list of New York fair winners with representative examples of each .

3 QUILT STYLES

It's also important to our conclusions that we find the term first in the New York area that was so persistently Dutch.

New York Historical Society

Petrus Stuyvesant

Most Americans know of a single Dutch colonist, one-legged Peter Stuyvesant

who surrendered New Netherland to the British in the 1660s.

Inheritors of Dutch culture have been ignored in American history with English descendants dominating politically and culturally for the past 400 years.

Yet, Dutch culture, folkways and language have long survived in New York from Flatbush north to Niagara.

Red and green applique quilts shown here seem typical of those made by New Yorkers of Dutch ancestry about 200 years after New Netherland became New York.

My guess is that the term "transposed quilt" is regional English with roots in Dutch language and needlework classification systems that began in the home of the Dutch New Yorkers. The unusual name was used in a few other places as the century continued.

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania word use: 3 categories for prize winners:

Silk, calico and transposed.

Silk quilt [e.g. crazy etc.], Cotton pieced? and appliqued?

The whole search is Louise's and my idea of a good time. We do love those old newspapers.

Morris Muse: Nellie Whichelo

2026-05-07T06:00:00.003-05:00

Mary Eleanor "Nellie" Whichelo (1862-1959)

Head Designer at the Royal School of Needlework

Nellie Whichelo came from a family of professional artists including her father, grandfather and his brother. When 17 she and sister Georgiana (1856-1917) were hired by the Royal School of Art Needlework founded in 1872, a project of Queen Victoria's daughter Princess Helena (1846-1923).

Queen Victoria's daughters Louise on the left and

Helena with what looks to be a needlework pattern

The school moved to ever impressive quarters over the decades.

1879

Late Victorian taste defined by the Royal School in their headquarters

the year the Whichelos joined the staff

The name was shortened in the 20th century.

The Royal School had two goals: Reviving "an almost lost art" (or at least producing designs to suit Arts & Crafts taste) and providing work for gentlewomen in reduced circumstances.

Queen Elizabeth II coronation embroidery

Designers and needlewomen there also served as official seamstresses for the Royal Family, still stitching for coronations, funerals and weddings.

The RSN was an important part of British public relations, entering work in international competitions such as America's 1876 Centennial Exposition.

Workroom 1912

Nellie quickly worked her way up in The Paint Room (the design department) becoming head designer there where she presided until 1939.

Many artists worked with the school to create a signature style, among them William Morris

and his good friend Walter Crane.

Portraits by Walter Crane (1845-1915) Photoshopped into a frame created from

Crane's curtain border designed for the Royal School

These two Whichelo sister never married, living together

in the Putney area of London until Georgie died in 1917.

1911 Census

Edward VIII

Imagery contains symbols of

England and its territories

Nellie designed and supervised the embroidery on this coronation robe to be worn by King Edward VIII in 1937 but Mrs. Simpson disrupted those plans. Miss Whichelo was probably not a fan of "That Woman."

A small obituary in 1959 for an almost forgotten 97-year-old.

Lately Lynn Hulse who specializes in Arts & Crafts needlework recently has written a long-overdue

biography of Mary Eleanor Whichelo for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

PIECED DESIGN ROYAL STAR

Set on point in EQ8 using Morris Muse prints

Same set but two shading variations alternated

Eliminating the edge blocks for a different look.

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/search/?page=1&page_size=15&q=Morris+Co+embroidery+kit

Orange Tree

Embroidery pattern drawn from Walter Crane's sketch for a curtain border.

Embroider or applique this design to a square cut to 14-1/2" or larger.

Transposed Quilts

2026-04-30T06:00:00.178-05:00

A Transposed Quilt???

The fair board in Buffalo, New York mid-19th century seem to have been rather innovative in their categories for textiles. In 1857 and 1858 they included a category for a "transposed quilt."

Buffalo, New York

Two years later the New York state fair showed four "transposed quilts" worthy of prizes.

The popular Godey's mentioned a transposed quilt in 1861--- with no explanation of the term for its widespread readers---including me.

The "transposed quilt" idea remained for the rest of the century and into the next as

we can see in the fair results in Bel Air, Maryland in 1901. Despite new fashions such as Log Cabins and Crazy Quilts local women were still winning prizes for transposed quilts.

Did everyone know what a transposed quilt was???

I still don't.

I got a clue from Marie Webster's 1915 book where she alluded to what we call "counterchange" in design today. What's dark in one area is light in the adjacent area.

A word long used in describing heraldry and coats of arms.

And you do see it in mid-19th century patchwork as in these

sampler blocks. But one counterchange design in a sampler

is NOT a transposed quilt.

This idea might be a "transposed quilt"----turkey red and white---

but this style is late 1880 and into the 20th century.

Not what was happening in Buffalo fifty years earlier.

American Folk Art Museum Collection

Quilt signed & dated: Mary Grow, 1856

Maybe this would be considered a transposed quilt--- what we

might call a Feathered Star in Scraps,

The idea of changing the colors and fabric for each block is

not that common in the 1850s. The style may have been considered

innovative.

Cowan's Auction

Album date-inscribed 1853-1859. Alabama & Georgia.

Mostly seen in album quilts. Wouldn't you call this an Album

Quilt?

I am always warning aspiring Quilt Detectives to avoid trying to

read minds. You cannot read the minds of your family today. You certainly

shouldn't attempt to mind read actions over a century and a half ago.

And here I am doing it.

With few conclusions to draw from the whole exercise.

Something to Say: Adding Words

2026-04-23T06:00:00.036-05:00

r/quilter

Today everyone has something to say....

You might want to put a few words in your quilt (or a paragraph...)

I have been considering how to do this and have come up with several options.

Barb Vedder

Many needleworkers are using blocks of pieced letters, which they've

designed themselves or stitched from PDF alphabet patterns.

You'll find a variety on Etsy.

Design Your Own?

APPLIQUE

Myers-Lowe for a protest parade

Altered T-shirt

Crafty_badger 78

Does neatness count?

No!

PRINTING

It looks like Jamie Fingle stamped or printed these

letters onto fabric.

I like the idea of printing using my desktop printer and

some treated cotton.

FUSSY-CUT FABRIC

Another option (perfect for the seamstress of my skills) is an alphabet print.

Just have to find the right scale. A new shopping goal.

EMBROIDERY

Needleworkers are altering vintage linens and creating new ones with basic

embroidery stitches. See especially the Tiny Pricks project.

https://www.tinypricksproject.com/

Some artists are ambitious!

We can look to crazy quilts from about 1880-1920 for embroidery ideas.

One way to make a mark, a satin stitch.

A little more skillfully done

Studying crazy quilts and all the messages on them has led to the conclusion that the most skillful

embroidered words and dates were done with the aid of a commercially available tool, sometimes

called Skeleton Letters.

Stephanie has a set of "Tico Forms, for Padding & Stamping."

The stitcher bought these, attached them to the fabric background and

embroidered over them (again with a satin stitch) and produced

an elegant, graceful message---usually initials and a date.

"Padded Letters, Skeleton Letters, Embroidery Forms."

Nancy has a similar set.

They do not sell these anymore...

Too bad for us.

But you could make your own with a thick pellon or interfacing using stencil sets that are available now.

Either Plastic Stencils

Or Paper Patterns

QUILTING

PamDorra using white thread on a black background.....

Other ideas: Wearables

Shoulder loops at top corners, waist ties at bottom corners.

Ties could be velcroed on or stitched.

I've had my red hat for years. Merikay gave me a vintage rhinestone Scottie

Dog which I added a couple of years ago. But you know---red hat---

I haven't worn it in quite a while. I decided to take back the red hat.

The Scottie now has an attitude.

I was going to

Embroider the speech bubble

Print it...

Then I realized I could just draw it onto fabric and sew it on.

My HAT

There's a lot of potential here...

A Little Photoshopping

Morris Muse: The Wardle Family

2026-04-17T06:00:00.000-05:00

Collection of the Whitworth Museum University of Manchester

Elizabeth Young-Wardle Wardle (1834-1902)

in the early 1890s with a sewing box.

Not a conventional muse but an important business woman & artist

In 1857 Elizabeth Young-Wardle married distant relation Thomas Wardle, heir to a dye works in the area of Leek in Staffordshire, England and gave birth to 14 children before 1878. Despite marathon motherhood Elizabeth made a career of needlework and embroidery for herself, her family and her neighbors.

Thomas Wardle is pictured with ten of his surviving children in the late 1870s. Textiles were the family business. In the 1870s Thomas and Morris became friends united by similar interests in antique textile processes. Thomas experimented with traditional indigo dyeing & printing methods that Morris commissioned for his prints. Morris and Elizabeth Wardle were both interested in traditional embroidered ornament.

Elizabeth and embroidery students 1888

Elizabeth and friends in the late 1860s began embroidering ecclesiastic hangings in traditional style, altar frontals and other decorations for local churches. Architects who were building and restoring churches commissioned the Leek women to stitch their ideas for traditional needlework.

Khartoum Altar Frontal at Bradford Cathedral
by the Leek Embroidery Society

Elizabeth became skillful at design, handwork, research and teaching and in 1879 after that last baby she organized The Leek Embroidery Society occupying a classroom, store and workshop space next door to her home.

Wardle House, 54 St. Edward Street

The Morris/Wardle collaboration also provided secular merchandise for William and May Morris's London shop, which sold embroidery patterns, kits, finished panels and furniture like this fire screen incorporating the needlework.

A few years ago a group of Lady Elizabeth Wardle's embroidery

memorabilia was auctioned. Now in the Whitworth Museum's collection.

The Society’s work for churches and hobbyists was in demand into the 20th century providing income and employment for many Staffordshire women. Patterns, kits, materials and finished needlework were sold in Wardle’s shop in New Bond Street, William Morris’s showroom in Oxford Street, Liberty & Company in Regent Street and at Debenham & Freebody, off Oxford Street.

Details showing stitches in Leek Embroidery Society work

Much of the thread is an Indian silk in which the Wardle dye mill specialized. Tussar silk grew wild in India with different qualities than cultivated silk, among them some negatives such as resistance to conventional dyes. Thomas Wardle figured out how to give the Indian silk permanent color and became the leading British importer for a product that was much in demand during the Arts & Crafts embroidery fashion.

Collection of the Whitworth Museum University of Manchester

Sample of Wardle's indigo block printing

When William Morris and Thomas Wardle began working together in the 1870s Morris persuaded the dyemaster to learn the art of woodblock printing. Wardle's mills became the leading site of the old-fashioned technology, printing Morris patterns and yardage for others.

Leek Embroidery Society members designed patterns but they also transformed Wardle's block-printed silks, velvets and cottons by laying embroidery stitching over the printed designs.

An altered print?

The Society used a rather narrow range of simple stitches that

showed off the Tussar silk's color and lustre well.

Another link between Leek and London was Elizabeth's brother George Young Wardle (1834-1910) who assisted William Morris, managing the business and perhaps using his painting skills to finish Morris's print designs.

Collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum
Wreath or Poppy About 1880
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O250934/design-wreath-poppy/wreath-design-morris-william/

The V&A catalog for this watercolor on paper tells us (to my surprise!)
"Wardle was an excellent recorder of pattern....The draughtsman responsible for this technically adept drawing (intended as a guide for the printer to use when matching the colours) may not have been Morris, as his strengths were more conceptual than illustrative. Instead, it is possible that... George Wardle executed this design for production, working from Morris's first version....This design was intended as a guide for the printer to use when matching the colours. Pencil notes with instructions about the colours have been added to the drawing on the front and on the reverse."

From the Leek Embroidery Exhibition at the Nicholson Museum in 2013,

Detail Nine Orders of Angels. drawn by

George Young Wardle in 1864. Embroidery done in 1899.

This set of angels was embroidered by "Miss Winterbottom of Stone, Staffordshire, a member of Leek School of Embroidery," possibly Christina Winterbottom (1861-?) listed in the 1881 census in Stone as a "Shop Keeper Fancy And Embroidery" or her sister Amanda A Winterbottom (1858-1948) a "dressmaker." Christina taught at the Leek School.

George Wardle's tale had taken a dramatic turn in 1861 when he wed a notorious murder suspect from Glasgow. Madeleine Hamilton Smith had been tried four years earlier for killing her lover by poisoning him with arsenic, charges had not been proven in court.

The newspapers could not get enough of the crime.

"This case, regarding which such an intense interest has been excited, not only in Glasgow but over all Scotland, commenced this morning ...in Edinburgh. About a dozen .... ladies, were in court, and some of them evinced such a determination to sit out the proceedings that they brought their work with them and commenced stitching as soon as they sat down.... Madeleine Hamilton Smith, a very pretty girl, was placed at the bar...."

Glasgow Herald,- July 1, 1857

The jury weighed circumstantial evidence that she'd poisoned former lover Pierre Emile L'Angelier

....Madeline had purchased arsenic; L'Angelier was threatening to blackmail her but the jury delivered a verdict of "Not Proven."

Magdalene Hamilton Smith 1835 -1928

Among her names: Magdelene, Madeline, Lena

After the verdict she fled to London.

George may have met Madeline in London's Morris workshops where she possibly worked as an embroiderer. The business end of the shop was ably managed in the last decades of the century by two brothers Frank and Robert Smith---her relations?

During the years George managed Morris business the Wardles raised two children Mary and Thomas born in the early 1860s. In 1889 when George retired from the firm they separated. Madeline moved to New York City following son Thomas. After George's death in 1910 she married George Sheehy, a concrete contractor over 20 years younger than she. New Yorker Lena Sheehy died in 1928 in her 90s though loathe to admit her age.

Lena Sheehy with granddaughters

What Elizabeth Wardle thought of her sister-in-law has not been recorded.

Looking at the talented Wardles one realizes the Morris Arts & Crafts movement was a collaborative enterprise between like-minded artists and business people. William Morris gets most of the credit today but we would have less of a legacy without the Wardle family who provided design, production and materials.

Collection of St. Edward the Confessor Church in Leek

Photograph by Richard Knisely-Marpole

Embroidery by the Leek Embroidery Society

Silk thread perhaps on silk damask

See Richard Knisely-Marpole's photos for details of more miniature masterpieces.

https://www.rakm.co.uk/churches_pages/st_edward_embroideries/index.html

His photo of a sunflower embroidery gives us a pattern adaptable to a light-colored print in the Morris Muse collection:

Flowering Scroll in the Parchment colorway

Print this on an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet.

The proportions of the embroidery and print in the digital drawing will vary so you might want to adjust the pattern size to fit the fabric you have.

This entwined circle border was a standard design in Leek.

Further Reading

Cathryn Walton, Hidden lives: Leek's Extraordinary Embroiderers

Brenda King, The Wardle Family and its Circle: Textile Production in the Arts and Crafts Era

Preview

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Wardle_Family_and_Its_Circle/OAo7EAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=wardle+family+brenda&printsec=frontcover

D G Stuart (ed.): The History of the Leek Embroidery Society; Department of Adult Education, Keele University

Show Us KIAs Your Quilts: Topics

2026-04-12T06:00:00.011-05:00

We 6 Know-It-Alls Plus have been maintaining a

Facebook group for about two and a half years.

See: 6knowitalls:showusyourquilts

https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=6knowitalls%3Ashowusyourquilts

As far as I can tell we have been posting since November, 2023.

It's a group you have to join but do request membership. We'll let you in promptly. We have about 2,000 readers and contributors.

We want to see your quilts and show off our own photos. Each month we choose a focus based on fabric, color, techniques, geography, etc. This month the focus is "Regional Clues." What style, fabric, pattern, set and techniques offer a clue to where the quilt was made?

You can ignore the focus, though, and contributors do---

showing us something they just found or asking questions.

From Julie Silber's inventory of antique quilts

Some readers are total novices and others famous experts. We welcome both.

Pennsylvania-German descendant Angelina Ritter's deppich (quilt) from

the Goschenhoppen Historians Museum

We'll answer your questions as best we can and bring up new ideas. Our major focus is the visuals---how does a quilt's appearance give us information about the who, where and when a quilt was made.

Charleston (South Carolina) Museum

As we aren't mindreaders we rarely can tell you Why a quilt was made.

February 2024

We are fortunate to have many true experts in the group, specialists in regional quiltmaking, dealers who've seen thousands, collectors who own many and textile curators who specialize in various types and ages.

Maine Sampler/Album

Dated 1845-1846 from Cape Elizabeth

We try to be courteous and we'll "86" you if you insult another member.

But you can swear all you want.

Our archives there contain a LOT of information.

Search our information by looking for previous posts as topics.

If you don't see this search prompt on your screen look for Search by clicking on the image of the 3 dots.

6KnowItAlls Facebook Group Monthly Topics

2023 November?
11 New York Style
12 Pennsylvania Style

2024
1 Perhaps String Quilts in here
2 Maine Style
3 Feedsacks
4 Early Southern Coast Style
5 Modernism
6 Virginia Style
7 Crazy Quilts
8 Linsey-Woolsey
9 Dogtooth Applique
10 German-American Influence
11 Early Pictorial Applique
12 Scrap Quilts

2025
1 Medallion & Frame Quilts
2 Silk
3 Blue
4 Wool
5 Quilting
6 Dye & Color Problems
7 Inscriptions

8 Home vs Factory Dyed
9 Cotton before 1800
10 Needlework Techniques
11 Professional Designers 1900-45
12 Red & Green Quilts

2026
1 Early Roller Prints
2 Log Cabin Quilts
3 Samplers

4 Regional Clues

Updated-Backdated Embroidery Style

2026-04-06T06:00:00.000-05:00

Considering ideas for a 250th Anniversary Quilt to

mark this year we've looked at the state flowers & birds

fashion of the mid-20th century at this post:

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2026/03/state-birds-flowers-embroidery.html

Re-working this embroidery style a century later is only

going to appeal to the nostalgic---of which you might be one.

The aesthetic problem is the datedness of the look. Outline embroidery

was so popular from about 1880 to 1980 that it defined the craft back then.

From Crazy Quilts & Redwork in the 1880s through

the fashion for state flowers, etc.

Laura Wheeler design for State Flowers

The idea of pictorials outlined in thread replaced the centuries-old technique of filling in the shapes with a variety of stitches.

Early-18th-century filled embroidery

Embroiderers learned a number of filling stitches.

A new era of sharing pattern began about 1880 with a couple of innovations in printing.

One: Printers were able to illustrate inexpensive publications.

Page from Peterson's Magazine showing

typical late-19th-century embroidery design in outline

form. Did the editor expect you to fill in the butterfly?

Two: Designers like Briggs & Company could print a new hot transfer method in their publications.

Transfer patterns from 1913

Heat released the inked outline.

Read much more about this technology at Mrs. Depew:

https://mrsdepew.com/blog/f/the-fabric-tattoo-all-about-vintage-kaumagraph-patterns?

Modern Priscilla 1925

At first the outlines were meant to be filled in with fabric or stitches

but embroiderers soon found an outlined chain stitch or running stitch attractive.

I heard Ginny Gunn explain the whole fashion in a couple of sentences that went something

like this: "Limitations in printing in the 1880s dictated the illustrator show an outline with

instructions to trace the image and fill it in. Of course, they just traced

it and outlined it in embroidery---no filler."

Typical outline embroidered in a small, neat chain stitch

Another example of commercial needlework shaping style.

Advice to be ignored in the Omaha World-Herald 1938

Bright colored threads of the time defined the look as did comics

illustration style. One did not mix those threads as in combining

two or three of different shades.

That outline look replaced two techniques. One---traditional

filling stitches. Two---Applique plus Embroidery

TRADITIONAL FILLING STITCHES

The Kensington stitch was a long and short filler stitch taught

by the influential Royal School of Art Needlework, located in Kensington, London.

Satin Stitch---one length

APPLIQUE PLUS EMBROIDERY

I'm thinking birds from Quilt Journeys with variations of filled applique stitches....

Simple shapes, which is where I need to start.

The second style advocated by the Kensington school:

Combination of appliqued fabric plus embroidery

A style that became a characteristic of the Glasgow School of Embroidery

Classic Stickley gingko pillow design repro by Dianne Ayers combining

applique plus embroidery

Ann MacBeth design

Glasgow School of Embroidery

Tea Cozy with appliqued leaves & florals outlined in a satin stitch

Trickling down....

Combination of Morris Muse fabrics and a neat, contrasting chain

stitch around each shape.

Sue Spargo has led a small revolution in taste using combined applique & embroidery.

Her applique fabrics are primarily wool but she also uses plain and print cottons.

One could use all those state flower drawings with a filled or applique + embroidery technique.

A Laura Wheeler Sunflower appliqued with

decorative stitching.

EQ8 with Quilt Journeys Add On

It's all a design experiment. I think I'd be better off using the simpler state flowers and birds from Quilt Journeys. Here's a Columbine for Colorado.

Take A Chance or Two: Fundraisers for 2026

2026-04-01T06:00:00.172-05:00

https://www.kawvalleyquiltersguild.org/shop/opportunity-quilt

Every once in a while I scroll for Opportunity or Raffle Quilts online to see what's new and if there are trackable design trends. This spring I haven't seen much in the way of style trends---quilts from various guilds are diverse. A minor trend is one our Kaw Valley Quilt Guild is participating in. As members age older quilts are being returned to raffle off once again. This year's KVQG star was made for auction 15 years ago, won and was recently given back to raise more funds. It's mostly fabrics from a Moda collection of fabric Terry Thompson and I did called Seneca Falls.

Stitched by The SewWhatevers: Jerry Van Leer, Wendy Turnbull, Roseanne Smith,

Janet Perkins, Nicki Listerman, Carol Jones, Sarah Fayman,

Georgeann Eglinski, Barbara Brackman.

Long-Arm quilting by Lori Kukuk

On the Left: #1997.007.0660 IQM from the James Collection.

Pennsylvania. 1840-1860

https://www.internationalquiltmuseum.org/quilt/19970070660

Design was inspired by a Star of Bethlehem quilt in the collection of the International Quilt Museum.

Many guilds are making tickets available on line as is Kaw Valley so you can try your luck in the comfort of your own scrolling spot.

Orange County, California for Guide Dogs of America

Or if you'd like to mail a check for tickets at $5 each we will enter your name.

Kaw Valley Quilters Guild

ATTN: Opportunity Quilt Tickets

P.O. Box 1481

Lawrence, KS 66044

Allen Quilters' Guild

Omaha Quilters' Guild

Ozark Piecemakers

This wonder by the late Freddie Moran was donated by her family.

Drawing in July, Sisters Oregon.

Morris Muse: May Morris

2026-03-27T06:00:00.309-05:00

Portrait by Dante Gabriel Rossetti May about 10

Mary "May" Morris (1862-1938)

May and mother Jane

May Morris was truly her father William's design partner, designing and stitching the pieces sold in Morris & Company's decorating shop. She managed the textile department, creating her own prints in Morris style and continuing in his path after he was gone.

MORRIS & COMPANY DECORATORS

449 Oxford Street

The firm's showroom was situated here from 1877 to 1919.

Description of what you might find at the shop

Woman at work seemingly pleased with the results

After her father died in 1896 May went out on her own, primarily as a needlework teacher for the influential Royal School of Art Needlework. She published a book and magazine articles on technique and design.

And impressed that end-of-the-century arbiter of

taste Oscar Wilde.

Portrait of Oscar in a crazy quilt

Quilts from the Morris Muse prints:

Almost Maybe from LouannaMaryQuiltDesign

Click here to buy the pattern:

https://www.facebook.com/louannamaryquiltdesign

I gave friend Denniele Bohannon yardage from this line several weeks ago. She used the gray colorway to create a terrific pattern in her signature style emphasizing secondary patterns. Becky Collis long-arm quilted it. Denniele says it's done with templates and has no Y seams.

A SAMPLER QUILT

Moda asked Wendy Sheppard to give us an updated sampler

for Morris Muse.

"Oh Happy Day" uses a Fat Quarter Bundle

for a 76" square quilt.

Patchwork was not an interest of the Morrises who counted on embroidery as THE textile decorating technique.

William Morris began embroidering as a young man trying to

capture the appearance of old tapestries. He worked with many

women over the years to perfect the look he wanted.

Daughter May was his chief artist.

From the Victoria & Albert Museum Site

Pattern for Morris-style Embroidery

Flower Pot

Father and daughter designed this popular piece together when she was young. The Victoria and Albert Museum has an example that May embroidered in the 1890s..

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O88437/flowerpot-embroidered-picture-morris-william/

Linda Parry showed a detail of one version.

Meg Andrews once had this in her inventory.

Several examples of the Flower Pot by various hands have

survived. Pattern and finished panels must have sold well at the shop.

Pattern for a 12" block

One side is the same as the other---just flipped.

Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago

Embroidered panels often were incorporated into fire screens which one could buy finished at the showroom.

See more interpretations of the Flower Pot design.

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2014/03/morris-flowerpot-design.html

May on the left with Jane (Jenny) Morris (1861-1935)

May's older sister Jennie was afflicted by a case of grand mal epilepsy becoming more handicapped over her life due to seizures and medication. Her mother Jane noted in 1901 the she was "so much slower in speaking and apparently in thinking than she was a year ago." To her mother every seizure was "as if a dagger were thrust into me." Jennie died in an institution in her mid seventies.

May and her father were quite active in socialist politics as was her husband Henry Halliday Sparling, who worked for Morris..

Collection of the Cheltenham Gallery & Museum

May next to her husband with the bearded

George Bernard Shaw drawing their attention.

The Homestead and the Forest

Kelmscott Manor Collection

May and Jane must have had plans when they embroidered

this crib quilt designed by May before her wedding.

Detail of The Homestead and the Forest.

Mottoes and quotes of various types are embroidered in the borders, among them:

"Love me; Love my dog."

May and Henry were engaged for four years before their 1890 marriage and married for seven. Romantics like to think her true love was the elusive Shaw who indeed was living with them when husband Henry moved out in 1897. The following year Shaw married Charlotte Payne-Townsend despite his oft-stated position against marriage.

Mary Francis Vivian Lobb (1878 – 1939)

During World War I May met Mary Lobb who soon moved into Kelmscott Manor to live with May the rest of her life. May left Mary rights to live in the house after her death in 1938. Mary Lobb died the following year.

May and Mary at Kelmscott Manor

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2025/10/lynn-hulse-may-morris-and-broderie-perse.html

Embroidery patterns

Lynn Hulse, May Morris designs: “The very soul and essence of beautiful embroidery”, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, 2025

Victoria and Albert Museum article on Morris embroidery:

https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/willam-morris-textiles?srsltid=AfmBOoovlPBSDCmWxieaenEVzHws8b503hhnC27sO6mS19qRaMixJ1dO

Details of the embroidery at The Unbroken Thread:

https://www.theunbrokenthread.com/blog/2017/11/08/may-morris-art-life-exhibition/?

Reproduction Prints Spring 2026

2026-03-21T06:00:00.026-05:00

A good part of making reproduction textiles is the hard part....finding the right period print. It's time to shop! Several good repros in shops now (or very soon.) The most difficult prints to find as reproductions are chintz styles before 1840 or so. Michelle Yeo often does early collections. Her latest is Lost Gardens of Heligan named for a site in Cornwall.

Quite romantic and accurate

Ingrid’s Garden of Heligan from Michelle, available as a kit

Kaari at French General has a new collection in her distinctive style (reds that don't run and Gallic romance)

Jardin du Soleil (Sun Garden)

https://shop.modafabrics.com/collection?group=Fleur+de+Paris

From the early 19th century with an English accent, a large group called Jane Austen at Home

Betsy Chutchian usually has a good mid-19th-century collection

in the works. The latest is Pamelia's Path.

It's the year to buy red, white and blue. Carrie Quinn's American Icons features a Centennial print between the stripes. In 1876 the image was printed as a cheater cloth print.

Centennial faux patchwork

Over in the right column here I keep track of the prices for new prints. The fairly consistent price
is about $13 a yard.

Morris Muse: Jane Burden Morris

2026-03-16T06:00:00.032-05:00

I have a new Moda line called Morris Muse, the latest in our "Best of Morris"

series of reproduction Arts & Craft prints. Bolts should be in your

shop this week.

Roseanne Smith's log cabin cut from strips of the Russet red colorway for centers.

See the prints here:

https://shop.modafabrics.com/collection?group=Morris%20Muse

Morris Muse celebrates the unsung women of craftsman design, artists in their own right, designing, stitching and overseeing masterpieces of Morris needlework. Despite late-century conventions that kept them behind the screens they stitched, women in Arts and Crafts circles were true design partners. Prints in the Morris Muse collection continue the Morris theme of nature-inspired patterns with rich reds and color complements echoing interior fashion and the women’s personal style.

Morris's prime Muse was his wife Jane Burden Morris,

Auburn-haired Jane looking wistful, a rather typical look

Painter Dante Gabriel Rosetti was obsessed with her face and form---

you'd probably look wistful too if you had to choose between Rosetti & Morris.

She really never did.

Jane and her fellow female Muses designed and stitched much embroidery for the firm. This bag by Jane from the late 1870s is in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum.
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O368440/bag-morris-jane-burden/

Over the spring we'll discuss other Morris Muses, show some period embroidery and new quilt patterns perfect for this fabric line.

We've cut a kit from Morris Muse for Modernly Morgan's "Same Sky,"

should be in shops momentarily.

Pattern for a simple quilt making the most of the reds & greens in

Morris Muse.

See a post with state birds and flowers drawn in my new EQ8

Add-on Quilt Journeys here:

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2026/02/quilt-journeys-bird-borders.html

Border design for embroidery or applique drawn from the print at the top of the page.

Print this pattern on an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet

for a border strip finishing to 24" x 4".

Read More:

Debra N. Mancoff, Jane Morris: The Pre-Raphaelite Model of Beauty

Wendy Parkins, Jane Morris: The Burden of History

Preview here:

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Jane_Morris/M1GrBgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0