Juniper and Mistletoe

Karla Menaugh and I are sending a new book to the printer this week. It's from Star Books---a block of the month applique design called Juniper and Mistletoe: A Forest of Applique.

It started as a pattern called A Festival of Trees for our Sunflower Pattern Co-operative but once Karla moved 750 miles away we could never get organized enough to do much with it. Several shops sold kits for a few years so we decided we'd publish the pattern as a book because we had so many great samples.

Karla picked out trees and birds from antique quilts and I drew them up. She designed the quilt, machine appliqued the trees and wrote directions for her techniques. I wrote about trees. My favorite quote is one from Willa Cather:

"I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do."

We collected several quilts, among them one stitched by Megan Johnson shown here in a behind-the-scenes view of a Star photography session.

Photographer Aaron Leimkuehler has built a wall that we can pin the quilts to rather than hanging them from a rod. Then editor Jenifer Dick and Aaron steamed all the wrinkles out that the poor quilt acquired in its FedEx trip across the country. We can make the quilts look remarkably flat----not that Megan's quilt WASN'T flat. My job was to sit in a chair and say---"A little up on the left."

Now that I have insulted everyone –Megan by implying her quilt wasn't flat, and Jenifer and Aaron by posting photos of their rears I will close for the day by telling you to click here to see more about Juniper and Mistletoe:

https://www.pickledishstore.com/productDetail.php?PID=1143

And Jenifer has a blog called Forty Two Quilts: her "year-long exploration into quilts, needlework and the slow descent into madness."

I think the last is due to her three adolescent and pre-adolescent children.

Click here to watch the descent:

http://milo-designs.blogspot.com/

Early Quilt Design

I recently received a note from the Honey Barn, a shop in Iowa, wanting information about quilt patterns that would have been in use during the Revolutionary War. It's a question I've been interested in lately. I gave her the references below about medallion quilts. Above are two medallion quilts from Cynthia Collier.

The earliest patchwork quilts in America only date to the 1780s, which is still the Revolutionary Era. Block-style quilts were rare and most quilts are made in the medallion format. On my web site on the Quilt History page I deal with early quilts at the bottom of the page. I have links to some of the earliest dated quilts and then a few patterns for Jane Austen era needlework. Click here:
http://www.siputflash.com/faqs2.aspx

In my book America's Printed Fabrics: 1770-1890 I have a section on the "Fabric of the Revolution" with a pattern for an early medallion. And I do an e-Club for C&T Publishing this year with monthly chapters about early quilt fabric and style (1780-1830) plus a pattern for a medallion border for a period look. Click here: http://www.cluesinthecalico.com/

And one last medallion from Jenifer Dick who used the fabric she hand dyes to great effect. Above the finished quilt; below the center in progress.