An Old, Old Quilt

If, like me, you always like your antiques "the older the better", here's a quilt that fits the bill.

I came across this article a short while ago - it tells the story of a very, very old quilt that resides in Ohio.

The quilt is a whole cloth wool quilt.  It was made by the aptly-named Martha Crafts, born in 1760.  Family history says she made it prior to her 1787 marriage to Zachariah Howard.  This dating information consists of documentation written in 1910.  The style, fabric, and large size all help support the family's information.   This potential date would make it older than the oldest such quilt in the collections of the Smithsonian, and the folks in Canton are pretty pleased with that fact.

It was displayed last month at the local quilt show, only its second public appearance in all these years.

There is a great deal of family history associated with the quilt, making it an even more interesting piece.  The article details the history of Martha, her life and marriage, and the path of ownership and restoration of the quilt, a very interesting read.

Wouldn't we all love to have quilts with such great historical value and provenance in our family collection?

http://www.thecantoncitizen.com/2013/03/28/true-tales-howard-quilt/
Published in the Canton Citizen.  Written by George T. Comeau.

A Good Day's Work

We've got just one month left to get ready for Thin Ice Theater's production of The Phantom Tollbooth.  Costumes have been designed, sewing is in progress, with many moms lending their hands and sewing skills to the process.

Today was set aside for creating miners' hats for the workers in the numbers mine of Digitopolis.  My costume assistant Cheryl and I made our game plan, and in two hours, voilà, all done!  The idea grew bit by bit between us:  plastic hardhats plus cat food cans plus Mardi Gras beads.  Here's how our afternoon went.

The cat food can.

Tapestry Talk

A friend alerted me to this wonderful tapestry that was posted on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Featured Artwork of the Day page.

It is entitled:  Emperor Vespasian Cured by Veronica's Veil, and is Flemish, c. 1510.  The page about this tapestry has a full description, including the story of Veronica's veil and lovely close-up photos.

In style and execution and age, it looks very like the one I was lucky enough to work a year ago.

Phantom Tollbooth Costume Sketches

Step # Next in the costume process for The Phantom Tollbooth.  It's a real treat to do this show.  For several years now, when we've come across some outrageously silly costume item in the storage boxes, we'd smile and nod at one another and say, "Yep, we'll use that for Phantom."  And now, here we are!

Here are the current working sketches.  Because we have 26 actors and something like 56 costumes, it's, well, quite a project.  (See the costuming progress here and here.)

Cathedral Windows

Cathedral Windows quilts aren't, strictly, quilts.  There isn't the 3-layer fabric and batting "sandwich" that is the standard definition of "quilt".  The pattern is based on folding squares of fabric.  The folded squares are whipstitched together, and then small colorful squares are appliquéd over the joins, inside gracefully turned curves.

  

I like to think of the process as being very similar to the folded paper fortune tellers my friends and I made ad infinitum when we were 8 or 9 years old.  Does anyone else remember recess on sunny afternoons, choosing numbers and colors, and then getting a funny fortune?  Over and over and over?

Phantom Tollbooth

My next big costuming project for Thin Ice Theater is The Phantom Tollbooth.

We're producing the play by Susan Nanus, based on the book written by Norton Juster and illustrated by Jules Feiffer.  The book was published in 1961.  When I was in fourth grade, and the book and I were still both pretty new, my teacher read it to us, chapter by chapter.  It's been one of my top favorite books ever since, and both my kids are big friends of all the characters, just as I am.  I can't recommend it highly enough, so I am delighted to be part of this production.

Favorite Quotes #1 - Nora Naranjo-Morse

Years ago, at a show of Native American art, I fell in love with the sculptures of Nora Naranjo-Morse.  I also fell in love with this statement that was quoted in the description of her artwork.  It's become kind of a goal for what I want art to be in my life.

Asked if she is proud of her work, she says, "Yes....I think so, but even more than that - it sounds like I'm talking about my ego - but I'm amazed at what it does to me when I see it.  I am amazed at the person that I have become, that it makes me want to have character.  It says to me, 'I want you to have integrity.'  In that sense, maybe you should ask them, 'Are you proud of her?' ....  I can't take all this admiration thing too seriously because it's like some joint effort between them and some other force and I am honored to be included."

She is also a poet and a filmmaker.  A nice biography of the artist is here.  And a video made a few years ago at her studio is here.

Naranjo-Morse created a sculpture installation outside the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC.  Here's an article about it, and here's a photo from the article.