Northern Lily & Southern Rose Block 1

Block #1

Reunion

by Barbara

Here's the first block in the nine-month block of the month

 I'm doing this year with Moda called Northern Lily, Southern Rose.

I moved my star down a bit to show the fabric with the words "Union".

Susan Stiff designed it with me and made the model.

 She fussy-cut the word Union for the star.

We both used prints from my current Moda Civil War reproduction collection called Civil War Reunion.

 There's no green in that collection so we used a Moda Bella Solid. Susan appliqued hers to a tan print from CW Reunion. I used a monochrome toile-style print from my scrapbag.

Ilyse Moore is making the blocks at 8" and using an updated dusty pink and olive combination.

I chose a federal shield as the central block because I've seen many quilts from the 1860s with that image.

1850-1880

Here are a few antique samplers from online auctions

featuring a shield among other patriotic symbols and a lot of florals.

1870-1900

1850-1870

See the quilt that inspired the Reunion shield at the Quilt Index.org
It is a New Jersey sampler, inscribed in the center, "Presented to Reverend Mr. and Mrs. D.B. Stout by the ladies of Leedsville Dec. 1867."  Reverend Stout was pastor of the Middletown Baptist Church from 1837 to 1875.
http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4A-7F-55D

Another sampler with a shield, this one from New London, Connecticut
http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=47-7B-2F8

Ask your quilt shop if they are carrying Northern Lily, Southern Rose this year.

And for inspiration a few more shields from vintage folk art and popular culture.

Three stars on this Memorial Day postcard

Diagonal stripes

Spatterware

Stripes going horizontally and vertically in this ink drawing.

Kit for Arnold's Attic

Arnold's Attic Medallion

Designed by Barbara Brackman and Susan Stiff

The kit for the Arnold's Attic Medallion arrived from Moda the other day.

It's a nice package. Here's what you get:

 Fabric for the quilt, backing, a copy of Quilters Newsletter with the pattern in it and three labels.

The labels: a care label, a larger label for you to ink and one that says "Made by hand, stitched with love."

I like the Don't Agitate Me suggestion on the black label.

I might put that label on the back of my sweatshirt.

And on the topic of agitation---There's an error in the pattern in Quilters Newsletter. (This NEVER happens.)  Editor Angie Hodapp explains what went wrong at this post:

http://www.quiltersnewsletter.com/blogs/insideqn/2010/09/30/correction-in-pattern-for-arnolds-attic/

The bad news is the numbers for piece I are wrong.

The good news is you don't need piece I.

Arnold's Attic In Quilters Newsletter

Arnold's Attic Medallion

Kit Quilt from Moda

My new fabric collection for Moda, called Arnold's Attic, is featured in the August/September issue of Quilters Newsletter, published mid-July.

The magazine includes a pattern for a medallion kit quilt, a collaborative effort between Moda designer Susan Stiff and me. Moda is selling a kit for the medallion. Ask for it at your local quilt shop. The kit includes the magazine with the pattern.
Click here for more information:
http://www.quiltersnewsletter.com/articles/Arnold_s_Attic

The fabric collection Arnold's Attic celebrates everybody who saves things and especially my penpal Arnold Hegy Savage. Over the years he has sent me many gifts of fabric swatches with a note, "I found this in the attic." Arnold lives in an 1840 Ohio house that's been in his family for several generations. His mother, his aunt and his grandmothers were quilters and confirmed collectors.

Arnold Savage

Aunt Alice taught Arnold to sew in the early 1930s when he was confined to his bed with rheumatic fever. She started him out with nine-patches and he figures he must have made a thousand. His mother often found him asleep with a needle and a nine-patch in his hand.

Aunt Alice Hegy

Arnold's always looking for a place to put those nine patches leftover from his childhood. This is a pattern he's used to good effect. It reflects the traditional Ohio Star with a nine patch in the center.

The medallion quilt shows off the print we're calling Ohio Autumn, a splash of color from Aunt Alice's century-old fabric stash.
Click here to see more about the collection:
Arnold's Attic.

Civil War Home Front

Civil War Home Front, designed by Barbara Brackman & Susan Stiff, pieced by Monica Rodarmer, 2009, 79 1/2" x 79 1/2".

I hope you noticed the full-page advertisement for my Civil War Home Front reproduction collection for Moda in the October Quilters Newsletter. It features a reproduction quilt that makes the most of the stripes and paisleys in the collection.

We are selling kits for this quilt, which is the result of a collaboration by five people. One is the anonymous maker of the original star quilt, in the collection of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum (#1997.007.0644). See it by clicking here:

http://www.quiltstudy.org/includes/photos/quilt_database/large/1997_007_0644.jpg

Moda artist Susan Stiff and I designed the reproduction quilt---which is more an interpretation than a copy. Monica Rodarmer pieced it. She wrote, "numerous times during the piecing I thought about the original quilters putting their quilt together...no rotary cutters, high intensity lights, computerized sewing machines…" And I am also grateful to the machine quilter whose name I do not know.

The pattern for the quilt will be in the Dec/Jan 2009 issue of Quilter's Newsletter magazine. And the bolts should be in the quilt shops in late November.

Hickory Hoops stripe above and Cracker Pie paisley. Below a woman with the ideal silhouette for Civil-War-era fashion.

I named the individual prints in this collection for the make-do substitutes that Southern women came up with when they lost their access to factory and imported goods. The stripe in the edge triangles is called Hickory Hoops, reminding us that many rural women used wooden slats for home-made fashion underpinnings to support skirts like the one above. The paisley in the border is Cracker Pie, a recipe for a fake apple pie using seasoned crackers as the filling. Click on the link for a World War II era recipe for cracker pie, an idea that may have originated before the Civil War.

Cracker Pie
http://www.cakespy.com/2008/09/american-pie-recipe-for-quick-fix.html