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.

New Old Clothes

The two items I recently posted about repairing are now up at the Basya Berkman Etsy shop.  Check 'em out if you want more info.

1950's cocktail dress:  my blog Beading on a Little Black Dress , at Etsy here

1950's wedding dress:  my blog Here's A Reason to Get Married, at Etsy here

Old Whites

This lovely star quilt came to me to patch a couple of places with brown stains.  It serves as a wonderful example of how hard it is to match old whites.

Old whites are virtually never pure white.  This is both because the original fabrics may never have been as white as ours today because they didn't go through the same intense bleaching processes.  And then, they have aged, with varying degrees and combinations of browning, yellowing, and greying.

Starry Quilt

Here's a lovely star quilt, probably made in the last decades of the 1800s.  

I've seen this pattern called "Blazing Star" or "Star of Bethlehem".  This pattern has a long history as a favorite.  Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Quilt Patterns lists many other names.  Along with flowers, quilters seem to have always been very fond of stars!

Beading on A Little Black Dress

This otherwise basic little black dress gets most of its personality from the wonderful trim at the front neckline.  

Gathered fabric strips outline some subtle beading with iridescent blue beads - bugles, seed beads, and sphericals - and tiny rhinestones.  

Here's a Reason to Get Married

Oh, such a beautiful wedding dress!  When my friend Julia brought it to me for fixing, she said, "Doesn't this dress just make you want to have another wedding?"  Yep, Julia, it sure does!

Here are the wonderful fabric roses and the beading around the skirt.

Couldn't be more gorgeous!

Puppies, Kitties, A Lamb, and A Duckling

Here's a sweet vintage crib quilt, a special family heirloom.

I asked the owner if she would share the story of the quilt:

Davis Vertical Feed Sewing Machines

As I said in the previous post, I've been having a great time looking and reading my way through Janet Finley's book of antique photos, Quilts in Everyday Life.  

Last night, I read about something completely new to me, the Davis vertical feed sewing machine.  The photo in Finley's book shows a mother and her little daughter sitting at a Davis machine with a 4-patch quilt.  Finley dates the photo to 1895-6.  It is labeled by a photo studio in Afton, Iowa.

So I poked around this morning to see what I could learn.  "Vertical feed" means there are no feed dogs.  The fabric is advanced by the action of the needle and presser foot.  The Davis machine was patented and came into production around the same time as the early Elias Howe and Singer machines.  It's touted as being able to sew cleanly without pre-basting, to sew all sorts of various thickness of fabrics including leather very well, etc.  It looks like the company produced machines between 1868 and 1924 or so.  They are treadle machines.

Quilts in Everyday Life

Quilts in Everyday Life, 1855-1955: A 100-Year-Photographic History by Janet E. Finley

(I have no connection with the author or publisher at all, just thought I'd say it's a dandy book.)

I think I heard about this book via the Quilt History List.  I took a peek at it, and was sold on it right away.  It presents items from Janet Finley's huge collection of antique photos that include people and quilts.  So cool for me!  Quilts, clothing history, and social history all combined in one handy book!  The changing ambiance of the photos over time gives such a wonderful view into the "march of history" on all sorts of levels.

Not only that, the glimpses into homes and private scenes and street scenes are all very touching as well as factual.  It feels right somehow, to look into these old, old faces, many of them now anonymous, and give these people some recognition and credit for a life well-lived.  Personalities are sometimes very apparent, from sedate to out-of-the-box.  And, some of the folks are identifiable, and do have some pretty fun stories attached.  

It's like having a little peephole into daily life of long ago.  I'm always so curious about what the past was really like.  It's something we can't ever know, unless someone does invent time travel.

There's also a lot of photography history information.  It's not a topic I know much of anything about, but I do have some old family photos, some dating back into the 1800s, and I'm inspired now to pull them out and see how they fit into the info in this book.

Here's a review, from the Denver Post.  And here's another review, from the Why Quilts Matter blog.  This one will give you a couple of sneak peaks inside the book.  (Why Quilts Matter is a documentary series produced by the Kentucky Quilt Project.  I also have no connection with W.Q.M., but would also recommend viewing the series to add to your quilt history knowledge.)

I'm so grateful that Janet Finley collected all these photos, and now is sharing them with all of us!

My New Friend

She was rescued from the bottom of a bag of unwanted linens at an estate sale.

I'm guessing, going by the print on her robe, that she was made around 1970 or so.  She has a little bit of an attitude, and I was celebrating the new year by only doing things that I don't have to do, so I decided to spiff her up.

Book Review: Build Your Best Log Cabin

Log Cabin block, Barn Raising setting

I'm starting out the new year by doing something new.  I was invited to write a book review for an ebook about log cabin quilts by Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting.  I've never written an official book review before.  So here goes: