Morris Workshop Precut Projects

Two friends have made quilts from precut packages of The Morris Workshop reproduction fabric that I designed for Moda.

Denniele Bohannon made up this design. She took a Charm pack (5" squares) and cut them in quarters, then pieced in 1-1/2 inch Honeybun strips to make a sort of a nine patch finishing to 5 inches. She bought extra fabric for the edge triangles and borders.

Karla Menaugh used a package of Layer Cakes (10" squares) and some extra brown fabric for the edge to make this pinwheel quilt, which is in progress. (Dog in picture for scale.)

She used a pattern and ruler called the Twister Tool.
 

Karla arranged the Layer Cake squares according to value and then pieced a kind of checkerboard top of squares. She used the Twister ruler to cut the top up into squares at an angle and re-pieced the squares into the pinwheels. See more about the Twister Tool for Layer Cakes and the pattern instructions by clicking here:
http://www.country-schoolhouse.com/kits/090209/twister_tool.htm

The Perfect Thirties Quilt

Denniele Bohannon sends photos of the old top being quilted by the Harrisonville (MO) United Methodist Quilters. It's a postage stamp quilt with all the squares about an inch in those sweet pastels so popular in the early 1930s. According to my Encyclopedia of Pieced Patterns, variations have been published under several names, among them Rainbow Round the World and Aunt Jen's Stamp Quilt.

I've seen kits for this quilt design with each piece pre-cut and sorted into a box like a Whitman's candy sampler box, but I imagine most of these postage stamp quilts were pieced from the neighborhood scrapbag.

Clockwise from the top: Rita Benson in the blue shirt, Lee Cunningham, Alice Law, Mildred Randall, (founding member of the quilters who is 94). Not pictured Ellen Wray and Denniele who took the photo.

Denniele writes:

We meet every Monday and quilt. Usually we break for lunch and return to quilting. The money raised is given to many causes. Most recently, we were a Silver sponsor of our local Relay for Life, donated to our two local food pantries, a backpack program for school aged children in need and the Women's Life Choice Center in Harrisonville. We make an annual donation to the Festival of Sharing as well. There is usually a waiting list and it takes about a year to reach the top!

Quilts we have quilted for others have won a blue ribbon at the Missouri State Fair and at the Osceola Quilt show.

Medallion Club at C and T Publishing

November will mark the last chapter in the digital club that I have been doing for C&T Publishing this year. In Clues in the Calico: America's Earliest Quilts we've been building medallions around a central star block over the past 11 months . Above is my version of the center.

The club gives you a variety of authentic borders drawn from America's earliest quilts. Shown are two options. The October issue featured instructions for the Orange Peel border, outside edge on the right. September had the pattern for the Swag & Leaf border, outside edge on the left. November's chapter will include authentic period quilting designs for early patchwork.

Bobbi Finley stitched the quilt top below, using the Hartfield collection of English reproduction prints I designed last winter for Moda. Bobbi used a very British brickwork border for her outside frame.
Hartfield Medallion by Bobbi Finley, 2008

Denniele Bohannon made the version below with an outer zig zag border, a pattern often seen in the early quilts.

Too Spicy by Denniele Bohannon, Harrisonville, MO, quilted by Louise Lewis, Rich Hill, MO, 92” x 92”, 2008

Although the last installment will be posted soon, you can always subscribe to the digital club and use it like a book rather than a monthly installment. Go to C&T's Club page to find information. Click here:
http://resources.ctpub.com/eClubs/siputflashsCluesintheCalicoClub/tabid/122/Default.aspx

We'll keep the installments on line there for quite a while. You can download the chapters and patterns to a disk or print them out once you've paid your $19.95. Each installment includes a lot of information about early quilts and early fabrics in addition to the patterns.

Click here to see a trial issue:

http://resources.ctpub.com/eClubs/siputflashsCluesintheCalicoClub/Issues/Issue1ChintzBroderiePerseQuilts/tabid/135/Default.aspx


Above: a center section on a design wall I found in cyberspace. I think it is from Kim's Big Quilting Adventure.

Morris Workshop Colors

In The Morris Workshop reproduction collection I did for Moda we have six colorways. (Colorways is textile jargon for color palettes.) I gave each a name derived from Morris workshop history. While Fennel Green and Indigo (above) recall colors, the other names come from Morris places and people.

The tan is Hammersmith Tea, a reference to a London neighborhood on the north bank of the Thames that is now home to the William Morris Society and a name which the firm used for carpets. Merton Brown (above) is named for Merton Abbey in a village in Surrey, home to much of the design and textile production.

Red House Brick remembers the Red House in Upton, Bexleyheath, which Morris designed and lived in with his family.

Wardle's Sky Blue recalls Thomas Wardle who was a designer and dyer.

Britain's Textile Society is hosting a conference dedicated to the work of Thomas Wardle September 25-27 timed to coincide with the exhibition: Dye, Print, Stitch: Textiles by Thomas and Elizabeth Wardle at Macclesfield Silk Museum in Cheshire. Click here to read more about the conference:
http://www.textilesociety.org.uk/events/event-details.php?textile-event=102

The Morris prints are so great (No thanks to me---thank the Morris Workshop artists) that simple patchwork is quite effective. Here's one by Linda Frost just using the strips.

And Denniele Bohannon sent photos of a quilt made of triangles from the last Morris collection, A Morris Garden. She donated it to her church for a raffle. She writes:

"The Harrisonville (Missouri) United Methodist quilters did the quilting. I am one of them....learning from the best."