It’s voting time for this week’s Creative Expression quilt contest. Grab yourself a cup of coffee and a pencil to make note of your faves. You can vote for FOUR favourites this weekend.

Our sponsor this week is Jojo’s Quilt Shoppe. Joelle has donated four patterns from Fig Tree Quilts to this week’s winner. Plus be sure to check out their low prices and sign up for their newsletter for a bonus coupon too.

Now it’s time for you to vote for your favourites!

• Voting is open Friday – Monday, May 28th at 8 a.m. (EDT)
• One vote per person (based on IP address NOT email address), so have your family and friends cast a ballot for their favourite quilt (from home if you send it to coworkers)
• Winner announced Monday afternoon/evening

How to Vote:

• Review the photos and stories below… there are several, so you’ll need to scroll down to see them all. You can also click the link to the slider version to review the quilts in the large format and then return to this page to vote.
• Underneath the photos, scroll down, you’ll see the names of all the quilts with a square button** beside each one. Select the buttons for the quilts you want to vote for. You can select up to FOUR quilts this week.
• Then scroll down, all the way, until you get to the bottom of the names of the quilts. Press the vote button.

** Note: If you don’t see the square buttons to vote, but instead see the voting results, that means someone on your IP Address already voted, or that the voting period has ended, or that you need to refresh the page to see the voting options. Shared IP Addresses are very common in home or work networks.

Slider version: To view the large photos of all the quilts and descriptions, CLICK HERE. You’ll need to return to this page to cast your votes.

Please Note: If you are not seeing all of the photos, check your browser settings. Go to view, and text size. Make sure it’s set at medium. If you need web sites to be larger so you can read them more easily, then use the browser’s Zoom function, not the text resize. You can also use the scroll bar above, beside the photos, to scroll and see the hidden ones.

Next Week’s Quilt Contest

The theme for next week’s contest is Flower Gardens. Your quilt can depict flowers or be made using flowered fabrics. Any quilting style is acceptable. You can submit quilts, wall hangings, pillows, etc. as long as the item you enter is completely finished (i.e. bound and quilted). Get your cameras out!

To enter the weekly contest, read the rules and guidelines, then submit your quilt photo by next Friday, June 1, 2012 at 8 a.m. (EDT). Voting will start shortly thereafter and last until the following Monday at a.m.

Please note: the new dates/times for contest submissions and voting. This is a permanent change for our weekly contests from now until further notice.

Weekly Quilt Contest Links

• Guidelines
• Submit your photo
• 2012 Themes, Winners & Sponsors
• Sponsor a contest – only a few dates left for 2012

Blog It

Please share the logo below on your own blog. The more contestants, the more exciting the contests!

Need help? If you have a Blogger/Blogspot blog, see How to Add a Logo to Blogger/Blogspot for instructions. For WordPress.com sites, see this tutorial on text widgets.

Check the Latest Additions page to see this in action or you can search geographically too.

About 5% of the blogs don’t have RSS feeds that can be read correctly and their latest blog posts aren’t shown. That doesn’t mean that there is anything necessarily wrong with the blog, just that the script I’m using to access their RSS feed is unable to parse it correctly.

For those on Blogger/Blogspot: if your blog feed is not showing up, first try the instructions below that Pat in Florida was kind enough to send to me.

Within your Blogger dashboard, you need to turn on your blog feed, go to:

Design
Settings
Click on other
Site feed: change to Allow Blog Feed Full
Save

Then check your blog here to see if that worked. If not, use the Report Blog to send me a message indicating that you’ve done this and I’ll see if I can find another work around.

While implementing this change, I also took the time to update the directory by removing blogs that were gone and those that had not been updated in a year. Can I just say, this was a tonne of work, and boring as can be. More than 1,000 blogs were deleted. Yikes!

I am absolutely sure that I missed some blogs that should have been removed. So please, if you see one, just hit the Report Blog link to send me a message. The link appears next to each blog title/date and is unique for each blog. I would really appreciate your help to keep the directory up-to-date so that it is most enjoyable for all to use.

Also, if I removed your blog in error, my apologies, send me your blog address and I’ll investigate. You can check your blog’s status by using the Search and entering your blog address at the bottom of the page. If your blog needs changes, use the Report Blog link to tell me about them.

A Contest … Give-Aways

I was really disappointed as I went through the directory and deleted more than 1,000 quilting blogs. Each one that I removed it was like, oh no another one gone … almost like friends that have moved away. *sigh*

When I first started the Bloggers directory back in May 2008, I ran a Reach a Thousand Contest to help spread the word. It was wildly popular and I’d like to do something similar again to get new quilting blogs in the directory for you all to enjoy.

All you have to do is write a new blog post on your own blog and invite your readers to add their quilting-related blogs to the Quilting Bloggers Directory. You can use one of the graphics below if you like in your post. Once you’ve written your post, return to this page and leave a comment below telling me you did so and include the link to your blog post.

I have two 6-month gift certificates available to The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims. I just love this show! It works like a magazine subscription, so if you sign up mid June, you’ll get access to the shows released within the six months from your sign up date.

I’ll randomly pick two winners from those that are sharing on their blogs June 1, 2012. If we have more than 50 entries, I’ll pick another two winners to receive a 6-pack of hand dyed fat quarters similar to these ones.

Quilting Bloggers Logos

White background, width: 180px, height: 70px

White background, width: 150px, height: 58px

Coloured background with gold border, 125px square

If you have a Blogger/Blogspot blog, please see How to Add a Logo to Blogger/Blogspot for instructions. For help with WordPress.com sites, see this tutorial on text widgets.

Fort Worth Fabric Studio is an online quilt store full of fabulous fabrics, bundles, kits, and patterns! You can expect great customer service with special attention to your order. Nearly always, next day shipping and many times, same day shipping! We promise you "online service with a smile".

We are home of the Friday Bundle Batch, an assortment of fabrics that are hand-selected to perfectly complement each other! Check for a new Bundle each Friday!

This Week’s Quilter’s Super Deal:

Save 40% OFF all Piccadilly by Quilting Treasures! No special code is required. The discount applies to all Piccadilly Yardage and Fat Quarter Bundles! SALE runs through May 29th at midnight, CST.

Start shopping here!

Advertisers: Contact me for an information package on featuring your Quilter’s Super Deal.

UPDATED: You’ll have until Friday morning at 9:00 am (EDT) to submit quilts for this week’s contest. Voting will start shortly after.

The theme for this week’s contest is Creative Expression. This is an open-ended theme that you are free to interpret as you see fit. Any quilting style is acceptable. You can submit quilts, wall hangings, pillows, etc. as long as the item you enter is completely finished (i.e. bound and quilted).

Jojo’s Quilt Shoppe is back with us as this week’s sponsor. Plus be sure to check out their low prices and sign up for their newsletter for a bonus coupon too.

Jojo’s Quilt Shoppe

Hello Quilting Gallery Friends,

We would like for everyone to know that everything at Jojo’s Quilt Shoppe is 20% off Everyday, no exceptions. If you see anything at full price, it is a mistake, so please tell us!

Our prize for this week’s winner will be a set of four patterns from Fig Tree Quilts. The winner gets to choose the four patterns they would like. Here are a few from our store:

BONUS SAVINGS: If you sign up for our Newsletter (top center of our homepage) you will receive a discount code via e-mail, for an additional 10% off your entire order! (excludes Gift Certificates)

Visit us soon for the best items, and be sure to tell a Quilting, Sewing or Craft Friend about our low prices! If Quilter’s need any help, we offer LiveChat Support on our web site and e-mail support at jbeane@jojosquiltshoppe.com. We look forward to serving you soon!

Joelle
Jojo’s Quilt Shoppe

Enter the Contest

Get your cameras out! To enter the weekly contest, read the rules and guidelines, then submit your quilt photo by Thursday evening (EST). Voting will start on Friday and last until Sunday night.

Weekly Quilt Contest Links

• Guidelines
• Submit your photo
• 2012 Themes, Winners & Sponsors
• Sponsor a contest – Check available dates – only a few left

Last Week’s Quilt Contest

Thanks to everyone who entered last week’s Wind, Earth, Fire & Water contest. Vicki Welsh donated a stash pack of her gorgeous hand dyed fabrics and a Misty Fuse Teflon sheet to the winner:

Margaret Gunn

Blog It

Please share the logo below on your own blog. The more contestants, the more exciting the contests!

Need help? If you have a Blogger/Blogspot blog, see How to Add a Logo to Blogger/Blogspot for instructions. For WordPress.com sites, see this tutorial on text widgets.

It’s Sew Mama Sew’s give-away day! Have some fun clicking around to all the fabulous blogs giving away goodies. Once you’re done entering my give-away below, visit the other blogs here.

If you’re new here to the Quilting Gallery .. welcome! I’m Michele Foster, aka Mishka. I hope you’ll spend a few minutes checking out the various sections of my site from the links above including the most popular Quilting Bloggers Directory – with more than 6,200 quilting friends from around the world.

Also, each week I host a weekly themed quilt contest too. The theme for this weeks contest is Creative Expression. Quilters are free to interpret this theme as they see fit. Any quilting style is acceptable. You can submit quilts, wall hangings, pillows, etc. as long as the item you enter is completely finished (i.e. bound and quilted). Enter here!

You can keep in touch by subscribing to my weekly newsletter or our Facebook group.

Give-Aways

I’m giving away these six gorgeous hand-dyed fabrics from my collection:

To enter the give-away, leave a comment below answering, To add some pop to a quilt, what colour would you use. One entry per person. Winner will be selected randomly May 26th. I will ship worldwide.

Also, I’m hosting a give-away for MyMemories Suite scrap booking software. This give-away is open until May 23rd, enter this give-away here.

Congratulations to winner #161 Becky. Look for an email from me.

It’s voting time for this week’s Wind, Earth, Fire & Water quilt contest. Grab yourself a cup of coffee and a pencil to make note of your faves. You can vote for TWO favourites this weekend.

Our sponsor this week is Vicki Welsh who creates gorgeous hand dyed fabrics. She has donated a Stash Pack of hand dyed fabrics containing 10 fat eighths and a Goddess Sheet Teflon pressing sheet from Mistyfuse for this week’s winner.

Bonus savings for everyone: Vicki is offering a special 15% discount for Quilting Gallery readers through May 24th. Use coupon code MAY15.

Now it’s time for you to vote for your favourites!

• Voting is open Friday – Sunday at midnight (EDT)
• One vote per person (based on IP address NOT email address), so have your family and friends cast a ballot for their favourite quilt (from home if you send it to coworkers)
• Winner announced Monday

How to Vote:

• Review the photos and stories below… there are several, so you’ll need to scroll down to see them all. You can also click the link to the slider version to review the quilts in the large format and then return to this page to vote.
• Underneath the photos, scroll down, you’ll see the names of all the quilts with a square button** beside each one. Select the buttons for the quilts you want to vote for. You can select up to TWO quilts this week.
• Then scroll down, all the way, until you get to the bottom of the names of the quilts. Press the vote button.

** Note: If you don’t see the square buttons to vote, but instead see the voting results, that means someone on your IP Address already voted, or that the voting period has ended, or that you need to refresh the page to see the voting options. Shared IP Addresses are very common in home or work networks.

Slider version: To view the large photos of all the quilts and descriptions, CLICK HERE. You’ll need to return to this page to cast your votes.

Please Note: If you are not seeing all of the photos, check your browser settings. Go to view, and text size. Make sure it’s set at medium. If you need web sites to be larger so you can read them more easily, then use the browser’s Zoom function, not the text resize. You can also use the scroll bar above, beside the photos, to scroll and see the hidden ones.

Next Week’s Quilt Contest

The theme for next week’s contest is Creative Expression. Quilters are free to interpret this theme as they see fit. Any quilting style is acceptable. You can submit quilts, wall hangings, pillows, etc. as long as the item you enter is completely finished (i.e. bound and quilted). Get your cameras out!

To enter the weekly contest, read the rules and guidelines, then submit your quilt photo by Thursday evening (EDT). Voting will start on Friday and last until Sunday night.

Weekly Quilt Contest Links

• Guidelines
• Submit your photo
• 2012 Themes, Winners & Sponsors
• Sponsor a contest – only a few dates left for 2012

The Learning Center

This week’s Learning Center post explores Quilting History with four fabulous guests, Amy Milne, Judy Anne Breneman, Julie Silber and Diane MacLeod Shink, sharing their stories, photos and expertise. Also, we’re giving away two copies of the digital scrap booking software, MyMemories.

Read the post and enter the give-away here!

Hi everyone! It’s Michele here for today’s Learning Center post on Quilting History. I have four fabulous guests, Amy Milne, Judy Anne Breneman, Julie Silber and Diane MacLeod Shink, sharing their stories, photos and expertise. Also, we’re giving away two copies of the digital scrap booking software, MyMemories.

Pat will be back with a Spring Quilt Market post at the end of May and then in June, we have something very exciting planned for the summer months!

Little Known Stories from Quilt History

By: Judy Anne Breneman

In 1998, I began writing articles about quilt history and posting them on my web site. At that time there was essentially nothing about the topic on the web. At first I wrote about the basics and as I researched for each article I found that there was always much more to be learned than I expected. The result of was my Tour of America’s Quilting Through Time. Over the next 10 years my sites grew until I have now posted over 200 articles online.

I love the way quilt history tells us about the lives of everyday women, something we rarely see in a history book. Because of this I’m always especially pleased when I discover something in quilt history that I would never have expected. I thought it would be interesting to tell you about a few of them here.

I hadn’t been looking into quilt history long before I learned that tobacco companies used to give away little silk pictures in packages of cigarettes. Women loved collecting them for decorative projects including using them in their Crazy Quilts. I imagine it helped stop the wife from complaining about their husband’s smoking. Other promotions were cigar ribbons and tobacco flannels. Read more at Tobacco Premium Quilt History.

Much later, I learned about a truly unusual style of quilt. Go to Tile Quilts: An Unusual Style of Applique to learn how they were made.

The Internet brings us together with like-minded people from all over the world. Through my site I became acquainted with Isabelle who wrote Quilting in France: The French Traditions for me. Follow the link to see the exquisite needlework that was done.

On a quilt history discussion board, Dutch historian An Moonen mentioned that after World War II ended, women in the Netherlands made symbolic patchwork skirts. The story behind the skirts is one you will never forget. Read it at Dutch Patchwork National Celebration Skirts.

Quilt history can be a way to discover the lives of individual women as well. If I hadn’t heard about the quilt made by Elizabeth Keckley I would never have read more about her and learned her unique story of going from slave woman to the dressmaker and assistant to President Lincoln’s wife. I’ve written her story at Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly . To find more information and see photos of the quilt go to Elizabeth Keckley and the Mary Todd Lincoln Quilt [PDF file].

I love books that tell stories about quiltmakers along with the photos of their quilts. “Quilts of the Oregon Trail” by Mary Bywater Cross is one such book. In it Emma Giesey’s quilt is shown along with a little about her life. Emma was a part of a communal society that settled in Aurora, Oregon. Historic fiction writer Jane Kirkpatrick was looking through the book and became fascinated with Emma. After a good deal of additional research Jane wrote a series of three books about her life. The Aurora Colony Museum tells about my visit there.

I’m ending with a scandal, a big one that wasn’t uncovered until years after it occurred. Read all about it at Quilts and the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair.

I hope you enjoyed my tour of little known quilt history. It’s proof certain that history isn’t all dry and boring dates and facts.

Alliance for American Quilts: Document – Preserve – Share

By: Amy Milne, Executive Director, the Alliance for American Quilts | Email Amy

Every quilt has a story. A signature quilt made to raise funds for a cause, a double wedding ring quilt celebrating a marriage, and a simple patchwork quilt made from a uniform or a favorite dress to keep a family warm, all document lives. Quilts are historical documents that contain dates, names, verses, symbols, and even maps. When the quilt has just been made, and the owner still nearby, the story is full and rich and complete—there for the asking and the telling. But if the two are separated before the story has been preserved—the quilt is sold, given away, or lost, or the quiltmaker passes away—the story inevitably fades with the quilt.

The nonprofit Alliance for American Quilts was founded in 1993 to support and develop projects to document, preserve, and share the history of quilts and quiltmakers. The Alliance brings together groups and individuals from the creative, scholarly and business worlds of quiltmaking to advance the recognition of quilts and their makers in American culture. A dynamic board of volunteers from across the U.S. and abroad work with a staff of two, Executive Director Amy Milne and office manager Debby Josephs, and project partners at MATRIX: Center for Humane Arts, Letters and Social Sciences Online at Michigan State University and the Michigan State University Museum, to carry out core mission projects.

A growing corps of passionate annual members provide financial support and volunteer service that form the framework for the Alliance’s work to save and share quilt history. An annual small quilt contest and a growing events program not only provide key funding for projects, but also provide opportunities to document the work and priorities of today’s quiltmakers.

The Alliance’s core and partner projects are:

• Quilters’ S.O.S. – Save Our Stories is our grassroots oral history project preserving the stories of today’s quiltmakers from all over the U.S. and abroad. Volunteers use a simple oral history protocol to interview quiltmakers about their quiltmaking, their inspiration, and their lives. The interview transcripts and photos are then shared on the Alliance’s web site and the materials are archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. Q.S.O.S. interviewees (now numbering over 1,000) are as diverse as the quilts themselves, including beginners, professionals, traditional quilters, art quilters, long arm quilters, hand quilters and many who fit somewhere in the midst of these labels.


QSOS Interviewee Barbara Pate, Interviewer Alice Helms

• The Quilt Index is an online database of quilt records bringing new access to detailed information and images of quilts from museums, historical societies, guilds, documentation projects and private collections. The Quilt Index is a partnership project of the Alliance, MATRIX: Center for Humane Arts, Letters and Social Sciences Online at Michigan State University and the Michigan State University Museum. Currently undergoing an internationalization phase, the project aims to add quilt collections from institutions and private collections out side the United States. Users can now browse and search quilts from the South Africa Quilt History Project and the Royal Alberta Museum. An ongoing goal is to work with state and regional groups to add existing quilt documentation to the Quilt Index, making the resource more complete for quilters, researchers, educators, collectors, genealogists and quilt enthusiasts everywhere. An easy way to access the Index and help support its maintenance and growth is to download Quilt Index to Go, our app for iPhone, iPad and Android devices.



• Quilt Treasures presents multi-media portraits profiling key quilt revival pioneers including quiltmakers, historians, collectors, teachers, and business leaders. Each of the fifteen portraits includes videotaped interviews, a photo gallery, biography, bibliography and timeline telling the story of these visionary figures. Video clips include quiltmaker Yvonne Porcella describing how she used a box of sweet cereal to negotiate time to quilt when her kids were small. Quilt historian Cuesta Benberry tells the story of how the WPA tulip pattern became so popular during the Depression. Quilt Treasures is also a partnership project of the Alliance, MATRIX: Center for Humane Arts, Letters and Social Sciences Online at Michigan State University and the Michigan State University Museum.

Quilt Treasures - Merry Silber

The resources of the Alliance are free to users via the Internet but depend on support from the community to provide this access. Annual memberships begin at just $25 and volunteers can get involved by making and donating a contest quilt or by contributing your time as a Q.S.O.S. interviewer or transcriber in your community. The deadline for the 2012 quilt contest, “Home Is Where the Quilt Is” is June 1st—still time to enter a 15″ x 19.5″ house-shaped quilt with the chance of winning the Grand Prize (your choice of any Handi Quilter machine quilting system). More information here.

To find out how you can get involved with Q.S.O.S. visit: http://www.allianceforamericanquilts.org/qsos/getinvolved.php

Next year the Alliance will celebrate 20 years of documenting, preserving and sharing the rich history of quilts and quiltmakers, ensuring that even after the two are separated the story will never fade. Join us! www.AllianceforAmericanQuilts.org

History of Quilting in Canada

By: Diane MacLeod Shink, AQS Certified Quilt Appraiser, Member of PAAQT

A silk patchwork coverlet with gold appliqué initials “IN” and dated “1726″ resides at the McCord Museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Made in the framed medallion style, it was brought to Kingston, Ontario from England in 1850. This hand stitched patchwork (made over 100 years before the sewing machine was invented) is the oldest dated patchwork in North America. Like other traditions quilting techniques were brought to Canada by early settlers. Cotton and silk yard goods were imported form Europe through major seaports and were always available for a price.

The earliest wool quilts can be dated to the first quarter of the 1800s. Sheep were kept in the pioneer days and their wool, processed as part of the home industries, was used to make utilitarian quilts. Flax plants thrived in the Canadian climate so linen was also produced. A few references to quilt making have been found in early 19th century diaries but quilt making was considered one of the many duties of a housewife along with producing and preparing food and managing the household.

The simple nine patch, stars and pinwheels were first used to replace the framed medallion and wholecloth styles. It was not until the second quarter of the 19th century that repeating block designs were used in quilt construction. The pictured Star and crescent pieced from wool clothing was made in the late 1800s. During the last half of the century with improved transportation and communication quilt patterns were developed and shared in magazines and newspapers.

During the early part of the 19th century, goods moved freely across the borders so cotton fabric was imported from the United States. The largest Canadian Cotton Mill was built in Marysville, New Brunswick in 1861 but it was necessary to import the raw cotton. Women liked to share and display their work, documented by prize lists of quilt categories as early as 1863 for exhibitions and fairs. There is more historical information in the book Canadian Heritage Quilting, Creative Designs written by Karen Neary and myself.

Women met in small groups at quilting parties and worked individually to finish quilts that were necessary to keep the family warm in cold Canadian winters. No statistics are available but I suspect that a larger majority of quilts were made or at least pieced during the long winter months when sometimes even the men in the household helped with the quilting. Most churches had women’s missionary societies or sewing groups who constructed quilts as part of fundraising activities. In my collection I have a quilt dated 1880 which is believed to have been used as a presentation quilt to a minister at a Baptist church in the Annapolis valley of Nova Scotia.

Quilters were never as prolific in Canada as in the United States partially because of the increased cost of cotton goods. Research in the Maritime provinces also yielded the information that ninety percent of quilts in museum holdings are patchwork style. It is uncertain as to why so few appliqued quilts made, perhaps influenced by the increased cost of material.

One of the identifying factors I see for Canadian Quilts is the extensive use of white in piecing, settings and backs of quilts. I find it interesting that today’s Modern Quilt Movement endorses the use of white in their 21st century quilts, “the more things change the more they stay the same” as we say here in Quebec. Few regional differences occur now because of widespread use of the Internet and the ease of global communications.

The star and crescent quilt pictured here is part of Diane’s collection of Star design quilts which have been exhibited at Museums in eastern Canada. Diane is available to do lectures and trunk shows about her quilt collections. Information about Diane and her work go to www.dimacquilt.com and www.quiltappraisers.org.

Canadian Heritage Quilting can be ordered from Karen, price is $22.95 + 5% GST + $10. Shipping for Canadian orders contact Karen at sewkaren@ns.sympatico.ca

My Love of Quilts

By: Julie Silber – The Quilt Complex

Old Quilts and I met somewhat late in my life.

It was 46 years ago, and I remember that moment vividly … it seemed to happen almost in slow motion.

I am among those who instantly fell head-over-heels in love with quilts the moment we first saw one! In my case, that beautiful moment came in a small house on Nob Hill in San Francisco, late in 1966.

I arrived in San Francisco a year after two close Midwest college friends settled there. When I arrived, I came to their home. Each had an old quilt – Linda’s quilt, made for her by her Grandmother in the 1940s, was on her bed, and Pat’s, a graphically gorgeous thrift shop buy, was hanging on a wall.

I was smitten – truly not too strong a word. Right there in a small living room at 128 Bernard Street, began a journey that changed my life. Suddenly and most unexpectedly I had met the passionate focus of my life’s work.

Right away, I started collecting old quilts. I also began to explore just why I had had such an immediate and intense response to them. After all, I had grown up with “Art.” Our home had a lovely collection of original paintings, lithographs and sculpture. My parents had taken us to art museums, and I had studied Art History in school.

So I was familiar with the visual arts. Yet I had never, ever reacted to any other work of art as I did to those first quilts. The experience “got me in the gut.” I knew it was not simply a visual thing ~ but I did not understand it, nor did I have words for it.

So as I searched for and collected quilts, I also contemplated the powerful way they affected me. I found some other passionate “quilt people” pondering the same kinds of questions, and we bonded. We talked and questioned and studied together. (Not much had been written about quilts in the mid 1960s – not yet!)

One of my college friends (also a quilt fanatic) and I opened an antiques store specializing in quilts near San Francisco in 1971.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” (to both borrow and misuse a phrase) my informal studies continued.

Collaborating with others, I curated quilt exhibitions at art museums, wrote articles, books, and catalogs. All along, I was learning more and more about quilts ~ and as important, the women who made the quilts, the people who lived with them, and the times in which they were made.

Now, in 2012, we have come to understand that quilts are more than blankets that keep us warm. They are also more than beautiful textiles. Much more. They are objects that hold stories and histories ~ they hold the lives of the women who made them.

Quilts can carry messages to us across time: information about what everyday life really was like for ordinary women who came before us ~ our mothers and great grandmothers.

Traditionally associated with the bed, where primal experiences of life take place – birth, sex, illness and death – quilts are literally layered with many, many levels of meaning and function. Social, emotional, political, aesthetic, educational, celebratory, and more…

To me, old quilts are an endlessly fascinating resource of information and simply joyful to behold. I am not alone.

Quilts from Julie’s Collection

Recommended Quilting History Books:

Julie Silber sent me these recommendations:

1. Shaw, Robert. American Quilts: The Democratic Art, 1780-2007. New York: Sterling Publishing, 2009. The first and only comprehensive study of American quilts and quilt making from its earliest days to the present.
2. Kiracofe, Roderick. The American Quilt: A History of Cloth and Comfort. Clarkson Potter, 2004. “The American Quilt charts the course of quilting in America, from the earliest whole-cloth and broderie perse quilts through the emergence of the block style in all its regional and popular permutations. Special sections are devoted to quilt subgenres, including Amish quilts, Baltimore Album quilts, mourning quilts, and African-American quilts, that are highly prized by collectors today.”
3. Silber, Julie with Pat Ferrero and Elaine Hedges. Hearts and Hands: Women, Quilts, and American Society. The best overview of the impact of women and quilts on American society in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, including information on quilts in the Civil War, women’s suffrage, temperance and prohibition, and much more. Out of print but copies are available from Julie Silber. Email Julie at silber.julieellen@gmail.com
4. Volckening, William. Beauty Secrets: 150 Years of History in One Quilt Pattern. The cover quilt is in the exhibition. An exploration of how quiltmakers have interpreted a single popular pattern from the mid eighteenth century to the present.

Please share your recommended books in the comments below.

Additional Links:

• Quilting History
• Quilts and Quiltmaking in America 1978-1996
• Quilt History

If you have a favourite quilting history web site, please share the link in the comments below.

MyMemories Suite Give-Away

In my mind, quilting history and scrap booking go hand-in-hand as both tell stories and preserve memories for future generations. The kind folks at MyMemories have offered two copies of their digital scrapbooking software to two lucky readers.

MyMemories Suite software is a complete digital scrapbooking solution that provides a comprehensive powerful set of creative tools no other scrapbook software can offer. With its intuitive workspace and enhanced time-saving features, this application is perfect for a beginner to create a complete album in minutes, or to empower the design pro to build a scrapbook album masterpiece.

You can make a beautiful scrapbook an interactive memory experience for anyone who sees it. Use simple one-click options to enhance your scrapbooks, with music, narration, video, and even the Internet. Go beyond pictures by showing off video of the birthday party, or record a narration to capture the memories that pictures alone cannot. With My Memories Suite you simply don’t look at a scrapbook – you experience it!

Enter the give-away:

To enter, leave a comment below sharing something of your own quilt history, or of a quilt you’ve collected or rescued. Two winners will be randomly selected next Wednesday, May 23rd.

Congratulations to the two winners. Look for an email from me.

Photos taken by their Auntie Jennie.

Good morning, I’m Jennifer Rodriguez from All Things Belle. I’m very excited to be sharing a sweet little crochet & fabric technique with you today.

It’s almost time for the International Quilt Market in Kansas City. I can hardly wait! This is my second time attending and I have been missing the excitement since the last one. Are you going? What are you excited to see? For me it’s a dream come true, it’s an amazing combination of so many things that I love. The show is filled with endless rows of new fabrics to adore, new patterns to want, and just about every designer that you would love to meet.

I attend the Market to be inspired, to shop, and of course to connect. This past week I eagerly received my latest shipment of business cards to take with me. All of a sudden my cards did not seem enough. I had just finished reading about how a friend of mine, Topsy Turvy, had created 300 cake pops to go along with her business cards for a blogging conference. I was inspired and realized that I wanted to go above and beyond as well. At Market you receive so many cards and literature, it can be overwhelming. I knew that for a few personal contacts, I wanted my business card to stand out in their mind.

This past year I have been obsessed with crochet surface treatments on fabric and quilting projects. I love the dimension and versatility of this mixed media form. I thought it would be appropriate if I could create a meaningful way to present my card that incorporated both fabric and crochet.

What do you think? I love its sweet and classic touch.

Would you like to learn how to make one? It’s very simple and could easily hold a number of little treasures.

Materials needed:

A small, plain muslin drawstring bag
Soft pink embroidery floss
1.5mm crochet hook
embroidery needle

Directions:

1. Thread a length of the embroidery floss into the needle, following the stitched seams of the bag, embroider a back stitch.



2. With your crochet hook and the same embroidery floss, slip stitch into the first back stitch. Then single crochet into each stitch all the way around.
3. In each stitch you just completed, make a single chain and then flip your work. In the same stitch work a single crochet, half double crochet, single crochet. Then create two single chains, skip the next stitch, and then repeat the picot (single crochet, half double crochet, single crochet). Continue this pattern up until the last stitch, at the end you will slipstitch and weave in your ends.

And that’s it! I adore working crochet into my quilts and you could easily use this method along the binding of a quilt for a feminine touch. The extra color and texture can really make the difference.

I’m hoping to make a few dozen of these before Quilt Market begins tomorrow. If you will be attending and you spot me, be sure to say hi!

Thank you for spending this time with me. If you are interested in seeing more quilting & crochet inspiration, I would love for you to visit my blog, All Things Belle.

The theme for this week’s contest is Wind, Earth, Fire & Water. You are free to interpret this theme as you see fit. Your quilt does not have to represent all four of the elements. Any quilting style is acceptable. You can submit quilts, wall hangings, pillows, etc. as long as the item you enter is completely finished (i.e. bound and quilted).

Our sponsor this week is Vicki Welsh who creates gorgeous hand dyed fabrics. She has donated a Stash Pack of hand dyed fabrics containing 10 fat eighths and a Goddess Sheet Teflon pressing sheet from Mistyfuse for this week’s winner. Plus everyone can save using the coupon code below too.

Vicki Welsh – Hand Dyed Fabrics

Hi Everyone!

I’m so happy to be back at the Quilting Gallery for a great new weekly contest. Since I was last here, I’ve been on a productivity mission. I have this fabulous long-arm quilting machine and I wasn’t using it enough. Back in March, I decided that I would quilt for one hour every day. I even decided to schedule it for 5pm. It’s worked a treat.

For one thing, if I happen to be wasting time in the afternoon I now stop at 5 to do a bit of quilting. I also find that I don’t want to stop at 6 so I am heading to my sewing room more often in the evenings. Productivity has soared! Since I started my one hour a day commitment I’ve finished two quilts each month! If you’ve been having some focus issues, try dedicating a specific amount of time every day, even ten minutes will give you more than an hour a week of additional productivity.

I’ve also been busy in my sewing room and have added a great new line of shibori fabrics. These fabrics are much more labor-intensive than my other fabrics but are so worth the extra time!

I also have a great collection of feature fabrics this month. This collection is based on the colors of the Monarch butterfly.

Field of Greens is the gradient and it’s available with this coordinating fabric palette.

As with all of my featured fabric palettes, it’s the colors that are on sale. You can get your fabrics in any combination or patterning of the colors. Check them out here and all of my other fabrics in my shop.

You can find me in all these places on the web:

• Web store
• Blog (with lots of tutorials)
• Facebook
• Google+
• Pinterest

Let’s get to the prize!

I will give away a hand dyed fabric Stash Pack from my shop and a Goddess Sheet Teflon pressing sheet from Mistyfuse. The winner will get to select the Stash Pack of their choice.

Bonus savings for everyone: I am also offering a special 15% discount for Quilting Gallery readers through May 24th. Use coupon code MAY15.

Enter the Contest

Get your cameras out! To enter the weekly contest, read the rules and guidelines, then submit your quilt photo by Thursday evening (EST). Voting will start on Friday and last until Sunday night.

Weekly Quilt Contest Links

• Guidelines
• Submit your photo
• 2012 Themes, Winners & Sponsors
• Sponsor a contest – Check available dates – only a few left

Last Week’s Quilt Contest

Thanks to everyone who entered last week’s Quilts for Mom contest. The Fat Quarter Shop donated two $35 gift certificates. Congratulations to the winners:

Nellie

Shirley Bartee