A Log Cabin Quilt with Mystery

I really fell in love with this "homey" log cabin.  It's such a cozy look - and feel, too, as the fabrics are well-loved and very soft.

Family history says it was made in Virginia for the owner's mother, at or shortly after her birth, so in 1920-22.  The fabrics support that oral history, and it's a lovely collection of fabrics from the 1920s.

The mystery is that the top row of blocks was cut off at some point, and then reattached.  You can see that the straight furrow design reverses at the top row.  The reattaching was done by simply overlapping the two raw edges and stitching several rows of machine stitching with no attempt to neaten up the rough cut.

A Sparkling Crazy Quilt - Part 2

I've just received a wonderful story in my email.  It comes from a woman whose family quilt I've just repaired.  If anyone ever asks why history is important and fun and how quilts can be a part of history, here is the best answer!

Good morning.  Last evening my grand daughters, Desmin 7 and Cecilia 3 were over for dinner and we were sitting in the dining room. Desmin was facing the quilt and Cecilia with her back to the quilt. The girls are usually very observant and notice anything different in our house but had said nothing about the quilt. Suddenly Cecilia said I love this and went over to touch the bottom of the quilt. Desmin who is quite the artist at her young age and since very small done lots of art projects with her grandpa and daddy and on her own, still said nothing. I said Desmin what do you think. She said, I just keep looking at the quilt and how beautiful it it is. Then she gets up and go to the quilt and very gently feels some of the patches and is especially interested in the beaded ones (sparkle ones). Then they wanted to know how old great great grandma would be. Desmin wanted to know how old she was when she made it, how long it took her and how she did it. The quilt lives on.

I recently posted about the subject of this story, a sparkling crazy quilt.  On that post, you will find lots more photos of the creative and fun embellishments and fabrics on this quilt, and why there is a ribbon on the quilt bearing the name "Nordd. Lloyd / D. Havel".

A Sparkling Crazy Quilt

 

This is a stand-out crazy quilt, isn't it?  

I generally think of Victorian crazies as having so many more blacks and maroons, browns and navies, with brighter fabrics and embroidery threads interspersed only now and then. 

So I looked back at photos of other crazies that have crossed my path, and well, was surprised to see how many are very colorful after all.  So what is it about this one that makes it feel so very different? 

This quilt is super joyful!  It is packed of a wide variety of embellishments, all heightened by beading and other creative and fancy bits - it is simply dancing.  The brightness has been heightened a bit by patching done in the 1970s that add in that era's colors, too.  But clearly the quilt was a riot of color right from the start!

Antique Photo from Melrose, MA

A few years ago, I did a lot of research on a quilt with many names inscribed.  It seems to be fund-raising quilt, and was made in Melrose, MA, in 1897 or 8.  The information and connections made via this quilt just keep on coming...

You can read about the quilt, the research process, and the results - there are 14 blog posts - starting here, if you want to read through the whole process step by step.  There also is a summary of the process, a description of my adventures taking the quilt "home" to Melrose, and downloadable sets of data that I collected.  

But wait - now there's more!

Good-bye, Amazon....

I've decided to make a change to my business plan.  I am going to stop selling my book on Amazon.  The sales page will be set to "out of stock".  

The book will now be available only on my website, which links to my sales page at Square for the financial paperwork.  I hope that folks who come looking to buy on Amazon will now come looking for me as an independent seller.

*****  https://www.annquilts.com/book.html  *****

Read on if you want to know why I'm making this change.  I am much crabbier about this than I sound, believe me, and have decided to put this in the most positive way I can. 

1: Selling through Square costs significantly less for nearly the same list of services.
2: Square provides a smoother and more flexible seller interface.
3: I feel much more in charge of my business decisions by selling this way.
4: My sense of morality is not nearly so threatened. 

One change to my seller rhythm is that I needed to design my own receipt since Square doesn't provide a pre-formatted one.  This was not a hardship.  The only thing I've really lost is Amazon's huge marketing reach.  And I'm quite happy to trade that in for peace of mind and making my own decisions.

It's definitely the way to go for my small business and for my world view.

I am happy to say that I’ve been getting more and more orders at my website this calendar year, and am very, very grateful to those of you who are already shopping from small businesses and independent producers and artists.  

A Beauty of a Quilt

 Here's a gorgeous quilt.  It's as simple as that.

This quilt came to me for repair.  The quilt dates to c1850.  As old as it is, it is in nearly pristine condition, save for a place in the center where it got wet somehow with something.

Here's how fabric looks in an undamaged block.

Virtual Quilt Restoration Workshop - Update

Here's what my living room looks like when it turns into a video production studio!  

Martha and I are pleased that our February workshop is now full.

The good news is that you can still register for alá carte lectures and private sessions.

You can also add your name to the mailing list in case of cancellations, and to be notified of future workshops.  We are considering holding another in late spring.

Visit my website for full information on content, to register for alá carte items, or to add your name to our mailing list.

Learn to Repair Quilts! New Virtual Workshop

Hello!  Martha Spark and Ann Wasserman are hereby announcing our brand new Virtual Quilt Restoration Workshop!  

More Snowflake Quilts for the Winter Solstice

Yes, I'm a day late for the Solstice, but better late than never, I figure.  Let's slow down for a while and appreciate the cycles of time and the amazing Earth we all share.  Wishing everyone health and kindness. 

And so, let's talk about the quilts.  I've showcased two Snowflake quilts here on my blog made from a Paragon kit.  And now, here come numbers 3 and 4!!!  

The first quilt I wrote about was a repair job.  The quilt was made in the late 1930s.  There are two posts.  One tells about the quilt and its history, which is noteworthy because the owner also has the diary of her great-grandmother who made the quilt.  She describes details of shopping for the kit and how the sewing progressed.  The other post details the repair work I did, which is noteworthy because the owner asked me to add an embroidered dedication to her great-grandmother and the cousin who received the quilt as a graduation gift in 1940.

The story of the second quilt was sent to me by a reader.  She inherited her quilt from her grandmother's house.  She doesn't know who exactly made the quilt, but it is likely someone in the family. 

Now come these two quilts!  This information was sent to me by a quilter/quilt historian friend.  She says:

Quilt Repair Success!

Tooting my own horn here for a moment! 

Here's the lovely email I just received from a woman who bought my book.

My mother-in-law made the crazy quilt in the photos in the 1920's.  My daughter inherited it.  It had damage where it had been folded for all those years.  Otherwise, it was in pretty good condition.  I show the before and after pictures of a pink piece (photos 1 & 2), and the last photo is of the quilt.  I used your book to plan and make the repairs.  I would not have known where to start otherwise!  I used a lightweight silk fabric to make the appliques, and 100 wt silk thread to do the repair.  I bought silk organza to cover the binding which was badly worn.  We were pleased that the color was so good with the original fabric.  Your book addressed all the issues I was working on, so thank you!

It's so gratifying to know that the book is working just the way I intended.  Here are her photos.  Didn't she do a super great job?!

Before

After

Binding

And the horn-tooting isn't complete without a link to more info on content and purchasing.

Quote of the Day....Quote of the Era, Actually

 I came across this on Instagram (@hayfestival) a couple of weeks ago:

These words were written by author Arundhati Roy.  They are the concluding paragraphs of her article published in Financial Times in April, 2020, called "The Pandemic is a Portal". 

Her words so clearly sum up my dreams and hopes for this difficult time we are traversing.  

I have to follow them with the little quilt I made early in the summer and posted a short while back, expressing my hopes for a new way of living being created from the old.  You can see the new ways and ideas just beginning to pop out from within and behind the old ways. 

World Turned Upside Down
18" x 18"

You can visit a previous post to read about the technicalities of how I created this two-layer quilt, and other stories about the concept that grew as I went along in making it.  

This season, I am most grateful for all the individuals and organizations that are coming up with creative solutions and pathways to not only imagine, but also build, a new lifestyle of respect and understanding for our planet and all the living beings who call her Home.

 

 

My 10-year Project, 2010 - 2020

 

Wow!  This post marks the completion of a 10-year quilt project!

Ten (10!) years ago I started a series of quilts, my own personal challenge project.  I was feeling the need of having some small, relaxing, just for fun projects in the midst of working on quilt repairs for clients.

I had been given a stash of decorator samples by an interior designer who was cleaning out her studio.  I decided to use them for my play space.  I set myself these rules:

The World Turns Upside Down - Part 1

 

This is my newest art quilt - I didn't start out to make a topical quilt.  I was just playing with some gorgeous swatches.

I have mentioned on this blog before how much I love challenge quilts.  This challenge is another one from the Just Wanna Quilt facebook group.  I looked at these luscious colors, and decided I need some of that brightness and beauty in these hard times.  We each got 2 packets of swatches from Free Spirit Fabrics, and the instructions were “make whatever you want”. 

My plan was to make two little quilt tops exactly the same, rotate one, and cut holes in the top one for reverse appliqué to let the other colors show through.

The World Turns Upside Down - Part 2

 

This is a challenge project from the Just Wanna Quilt Facebook group.  We each got 2 packets of swatches from Free Spirit Fabrics, and the instructions were “make whatever you want”.  I looked at these luscious colors, and decided I need some of that brightness and beauty in these hard times.   

Casting around for ideas, I remembered a set of three little pieces I'd made back in the '80s that I'd also made with 2" multicolored squares. 

Musing on Family History and Our Current National Disasters

I posted a few days ago about how about a quilt made in Iowa 1910 is connected to my ancestors and family members.  At one point in my writing, it occurred to me how many people whose names are on that quilt soon were to experience the 1918 pandemic.  In fact Etta Flexner, whose is one of the people I was researching, died in 1919.  I haven’t been able to find a death certificate for her (yet), but who knows - the timing is right for her to have been a flu victim.  She was 40 years old at her death, so she certainly didn't die due to old age.

So, since my mind has been on the ancestors, here is our family story about that pandemic.

My mom was born in 1916.  When she was 2, my grandma got sick with “the flu”.  She experienced super high fevers and probably nearly died, though no one ever actually said the word “death” in my presence.  As a result, my mom said she was “emotionally unstable” for the rest of her life. 

My mom and grandma, 1916

I only heard the story in euphemisms, so I don’t know anything with any certainty or in any detail.  Perhaps there was brain damage from the fevers.  I’ve also heard it postulated by a therapist that sometimes high fevers like that can unlock memories and emotions that have been long suppressed as a means of self-protection.  (And there is other circumstantial evidence of some sort of abuse in her childhood home.)

In any case, she was “fragile”, couldn’t handle any noise, and had terrible nightmares for the rest of her life, often waking in the middle of the night screaming.  I don’t think she’s actually smiling in any of the photos of her after than time.  In other words, my mom never experienced her as a healthy woman, and her childhood and much of the family life were curtailed because of my grandma’s fragile state.  My mom never could have more that one friend in the apartment at a time.  She just generally couldn’t make any noise.  And no one ever came and comforted her at night or even the next morning when my grandma woke screaming.  The thought of that now, seeing it as an adult and parent, makes me cringe.

My mom and grandma, 1927

 

I can tell you that the fallout from that has traveled from my mom to me, and as much as I tried to stop it, to my kids as well.  

So to me, this pandemic raises all those memories, and I’m sure that is part of why I am so scared of it, and have been staying home and avoiding even the things that are now considered pretty safe.  I just want to hide.  

And it makes me even more adamant about how dangerous and terrible our country’s handling of the whole situation has been.

To take all that and add it to the current rise in racial violence and hatred, including anti-Semitism, and I find myself also reliving the terrors that my father and his family suffered in Germany in the 1930s.  That, too, has come down to me as a deep emotional legacy.  I’ve long been aware of the similarities between the 1930s and the 2010s - the rhetoric, the creeping lock down of political systems, the lies, the fanning of prejudicial flames…on and on….

The Wassermann family c.1913

My grandmother, my dad, uncle, and grandfather

Bamberg, Bavaria

My grandfather’s farm supply business collapsed in 1935 because his customers were afraid to frequent a Jewish business.  My grandfather was overwhelmed with grief and then came down with pneumonia and died.  My uncle escaped to England, and then spent several years in an enemy alien camp.  He said it was fairly comfortable, but underneath it all, they were all still locked up, their lives on hold.  My father escaped on a British ship which was torpedoed at sea when England declared war on Germany in Sept 1939.  He saw people drown. He suffered nightmares the rest of his life.  They both suffered deep guilt for not having been settled enough soon enough to get their relatives out of Germany.  My grandmother and all her sibs save one were captured in Jan 1940 and killed in the camps.  The sib who survived apparently was saved by having married a gentile widower.  They survived due to the kindness of one of his daughters.  His other daughter was frightened and disowned them.

My grandmother Martha and grandfather Karl
c.1936-7

 

My dad Heinz and uncle Kurt
c.1936-37

 

When I think of how much my ancestors suffered, how many were killed in horrible ways….  

It’s not always fun inside my brain and heart, that’s for sure.  I was told from childhood that my parents had given me my grandmother’s name as my middle name so that some part of her made it out of Germany.  I can tell you that I am always aware of carrying her pain and living for her as well as for myself.

I often think about all the genocide in the world, and about how the pain and loss is carried by multiple generations.  And I wonder, given the ugly histories in pretty much every part of the world, if there are any people anywhere who have come through this all without such inherited emotional pain.  My heart cries out for the imprisoned children at our border.  I know they will, at best, have a lifelong struggle to regain their equilibrium.  The same can be said for survivors of friends and family who have met with horrible and wrongful deaths on our streets.

It seems like these times are all about suffering through the same things yet again.  Why?  It seems so futile to me that we could be repeating both these histories even after we’ve had so much time to learn from previous mistakes and regroup and make better plans and systems.  

Well, thanks for listening.  And please….vote!!!!  Vote!!!  As they say, vote like your life depends on it, because it does.  And I have the family history to prove it.  

My father Henry Wasserman and mother Adelaide (nee Flexner) Wasserman
about 1947-8

Flexner Family Names on a Signature Quilt - Part 2

 

You'll find the full backstory to this post on a post from April, 2018.  Here's a short summary.

Back in the 1980s, I'd found three people with my mother's maiden name, Flexner, on a 1910 fundraiser quilt at the museum in Kalona, Iowa.  They were not included in the genealogy that my mom knew, so we went exploring.  And after a circuitous and long route, I finally unearthed the answer:

My great-great-grandmother and the mother of the man named on the quilt were cousins.  They both had married men from the Flexner family.  So this quilt had led us to a branch of the family that we had never known about!  Unfortunately, by the time the internet came along to help the search, my mom had passed and never got to hear the conclusion.

Then last summer, in August, 2019, I was contacted by a woman who had found my blog while doing research on her Flexner ancestors.  She was wondering if the Jacob Flexner in her family was the same person as the Jacob Flexner in my family.  Turns out, they are not.  They were born about 6 years apart and have different middle initials and different parents.  

But here's where it gets really cool.  The two cousins named Mrs. Flexner both had many children, and amongst them, both had sons named Jacob.  One Jacob is brother of the man named on the quilt, and the other Jacob is brother of my great-grandfather.

And now, thanks to another cousin in that line, I have received photographs from their family archive!

What an exciting moment!

Another Snowflake Quilt

Wonderful coincidences and quilt stories just keep on coming.  I love quilters!  Here's the newest one to arrive in my inbox:

I have inherited this quilt and saw you restored one just like it! Thank you for giving me some history of where this quilt came from. I didn’t know who made it but am a new quilter and really appreciated the work. So, that's pretty exciting!

Of course, I wrote back and asked if I could post the quilt and her story here.  She kindly agreed.  Here's what she has to tell:

Social Justice Sewing Academy - Remembrance Block Project

Hi, everyone.  My recent three weeks of sewing have been deep and meaningful.

As some of you know, I have been doing some sewing for the Social Justice Sewing Academy for a while now.  This is a brilliant organization, lovingly and thoughtfully created and organized. The mission statement includes using and teaching sewing and art skills as a way to voice social justice topics and to give voice to parts of the population who are underserved or not served by the art world.

I can best describe the Remembrance Block Project by quoting from the website:

...a quilt block community art project that will provide activist art banners for local and national activist organizations who have requested creative statements to be publicly displayed that represent solidarity as well as remembrance. This partnership will create a visual statement to memorialize those who have been unjustly murdered by community violence (e.g. gun violence, domestic violence, child abuse, etc.) race-based violence, law enforcement, and gender or sexuality based violence. These artivism blocks will honor the lives of individuals through symbolism and portrait. Their names and identities will be displayed during community activism events reminding the world that their lives mattered.

Unfortunately, as we know, the list of names is very long and continues to grow.

I received my assignment three weeks ago.  I spent the first week researching the life cut short that I was to memorialize, and two weeks on the sewing.

Here is Bettie Jones' sad, sad, story:

This block honors Bettie Jones, who died on December 26, 2015 after being shot while trying to help a neighbor in distress.  There is lots of information online about her murder, because it was complex and in litigation for 4 years.  Her landlord and upstairs neighbor had called the police because his son was suffering from mental illness and had become violent and threatening.  The landlord asked her to open the door for the police, but when she did and the officer saw the son coming downstairs and towards him brandishing a baseball bat, he fired into the building.  He killed both the son (Quintonio LeGrier) and Bettie.  Quintonio himself had called earlier to ask for help, but the dispatchers didn’t send anyone.  In the end, the officer was fired and the dispatchers suspended for some time.  To me, this whole heartbreaking story highlights so many ways that this system is broken.

Red was Bettie’s signature color.  She was the matriarch of a loving family, and so I surrounded her with flowers representing her 5 children and 9 grandchildren.  This reminds me of all the large red and white flower arrangements that surrounded her red coffin at her funeral.  The golden bells at the top represent the family choir called Seven Bells.  Her nickname was Bettie Boo.

And here are some in-progress and detail photos.

 

 

The Remembrance Blocks are an on-going project.  You can register to stitch a block on the SJSA website.  There are other projects on-going as well - another sewing project to make memory quilts for bereaved families, and a brand new small business incubator.

There is also a block-of-the-month project.  These blocks are designs by the students in the social justice sewing workshops (which are now on hiatus due to the pandemic).  The blocks are super powerful.  I made one back in March.

I can tell you that this was not emtionally easy, but it has opened my heart and taught me a lot.  It has been a very Good thing to do.

The growing collection of Remembrance Blocks is on Instagram at @sew4justice_sjsa.

Eye Contact P.S.

So, having just blogged about my entry in the Eye Contact show yesterday morning, this post about the exhibit showed up in the evening on my instagram!  (It's in two pieces because I couldn't screen shot the whole thing in one go.)

Eye Contact

An exhibit called Eye Contact: Creating A Connection has recently opened at the Virginia Quilt Museum in Harrisonburg, VA.  The exhibit runs through September 15, 2020. 

I love everything about this show.  For one thing, I always love a challenge quilt show.  I find all the different, creative ways the challenge topic is expressed to be endlessly fascinating.  I also love this particular show because I have a quilt in it, and I had such a deep experience in making the quilt. 

The quilts are small - 23" wide x 5" high - and the only instruction to the artists was that the subject be "two human eyes looking at the viewer".

Here's my quilt:

Piece on Earth

Hello, everyone! 

I haven't posted here in well over a month....

All healthy, so no worries there, in case any of you noticed my absence and were worried.  The whole situation in which we find ourselves took over my attention and energy, and certainly my ability to express it all in words.  But I’ve been busy, and here’s what I’ve been doing.  It’s been a while, so this will be long!  Grab an iced tea (in my hemisphere anyway), and settle in.

Why Restore and Conserve Old Quilts?

read the story of this quilt

Why do I like repairing quilts?  My academic background is in anthropology, which taught me about how much meaning the objects we make and use every day can hold.  And all quilts have their story.

"Storytelling is the place where social and personal history meet."

This is a line from a lovely book I recently received, How to Write Your Personal or Family History, by Katie Funk Wiebe.  The book was written by the mother of a dear friend of mine.  She wrote many books, many of them about family and history.

One thing she stresses is how small memories and facts can build a valuable memoir.  I feel the same is true of quilts - it's not only the flashy and museum quality quilts that are worth gentle handling and care.