International Quilt Market 2015 Houston

I'm back from International Quilt Market in Houston, and finally catching my breath a bit from travel, filling orders, and just plain doing laundry!

Despite all of the media alarmists, the hurricane did not wreak havoc on Houston, but it did bring a lot of rain. Not something I am used to at all, but it only affected our going to and leaving the convention center. In fact, I didn't even know there WAS a hurricane, until there was some mention of it from fellow vendors.

The attendance was low at Quilt Market, so I'm counting on quilters everywhere to let their local quilt shops know about my new fabric line with Henry Glass, "A Prairie Journal". I'm so excited about this line, which was released at Fall Quilt Market in Houston.  It will ship in the summer of 2016, so please let your local quilt shops know you would like to see it in their shop! If you click on the image below, you can see the entire line, and the quilts I designed as free pattern downloads.

A PRAIRIE JOURNAL

In my market booth I was also displaying some of the projects that will be included in my new book that will be released in January, 2016, "Betsy's Scrapbag".

BETSY'S SCRAPBAG

I will be working like crazy the rest of the year to finalize the book.

The Quilts, Inc. organizers keep the Special Exhibit portion of the show open for an extra hour so that the vendors can enjoy the exhibits after hours, and not leave their booths unmanned.

An hour won't cover it all, so we had to edit what we could see, and my pick was the antique quilt exhibits. Only one of the exhibits allowed photography, so I'll share some of the photos here. These photos are from the Moda antique quilt exhibit:

The "quilt" above is made from paper postcards, very unique. 
 

We were on our way out, when this beautiful quilt caught my eye. It's newly made and one of the quilts juried into the Quilt Festival.

The quilt titled "Lady Indigo" was made by Carol Coffey Taylor and Martha Vincent of Beaumont, Texas, and is truly a beauty. The photo doesn't do it justice.

Of course, I had to go visit my quilt displayed in the Primitive and Folk Art Special Exhibit!

Annie's Scrapbook

I hope you've enjoyed the photos!

Until next time,

Martha

Enjoying Spring

For most of this month I worked on the first quilt for a future book. Here are some tester Blazing Star blocks and some final blocks for the quilt:

I came up with an unorthodox way to assemble this block with stress free results. The fun part (not) will be writing the instructions for it! Ha! The quilt is done, and I love the way it turned out.

I love to sit inside and stitch away, but I also need to get outside and enjoy a little sunshine. I've been trying to take advantage of the weather before it gets up to 1000 degrees here.

A little hiking.....

The so-called Lost Ranch Mine ruins

On the steep trail past the ruins

 And a little spring training baseball....

Dodgers vs. Angels program

And also this month, lucky me, for a special occasion, my husband bought me something I've always wanted - an antique thread cabinet.

Right now, I have the thread cabinet setting on top of my Grandma's treadle sewing machine cabinet. The quilt hanging is an 1840 crib quilt I purchased, and folded on top of the cabinet is "Practice", a four patch crib quit from my book, Be Merry.

Until next time,

Martha

Textile History at the Victoria and Albert Museum

Visiting a large museum can be a daunting task. What I like to do when I go to a museum is to pick a theme or a time period to focus on, to make my time more productive and enjoyable. I'm one of those visitors who likes to read the placards under the displays!

My familiarity with the Victoria and Albert Museum in London was limited, but I had read a book checked out from our local library about the British textile collections from the museum. 

So my theme for the day would be to find examples of early textiles, using techniques that we still use today.  Disclaimer: my photographs aren't the best! Everything was behind glass, with low lighting to protect the textiles. I did my best :)!

Embroidery:

Here is a mantua, or court dress, from the Rococco period, c. 1740-5. I always thought these were the most absurdly shaped gowns, certainly nothing that enhances the female figure. And who would like to be going through doorways sideways all of the time?

Well, now I know the purpose of the shape of the skirt - to display all of the embroidery, in it's entirety! How wonderful that the design and craft of embroidery were so valued, even at the expense of the female figure.

Doll Making:

For those of us who feel a little bit silly about our passion for owning dolls, making dolls, or both, as adults, maybe this will make you feel better. These two dolls, c. 1690 - 1700, according to the placard, were probably made "for the amusement of adults at home, as were dolls' houses at this time".  The doll bodies were made of wood and wool.

Ribbonwork:

I have always loved beautiful gloves, and would not mind seeing this beautiful fashion item resurrected today! This suede glove, c. 1714 - 1715, was trimmed in two types of ribbon. The museum speculates that there was a increase in the use of ribbon on dress during this period as a new Dutch engine loom had starting weaving ribbon. Ribbon had been woven on hand looms until then, at a much slower rate.

Quilting:

Here is a detail of the beautiful quilting and stuffed work on the c. 1360 - 1400 Sicilian linen bed quilt, showing the Legend of Tristram.  It measures 106" wide by 122" long. The outlines of the main elements are stitched with brown linen thread, and the filling quilting is stitched using a natural linen thread. (1)  Beautiful!!

Wool Applique:

I really wish I could have achieved better results with this photograph, but the lighting was extremely low in this area. The detail is from a wall hanging from Germany, c. 1370 - 1400. The hanging depicts scenes from the story of the romance of Tristan and Isolde, worked in wool applique. The wool motifs are applied to the wool background a little differently than we do today. A gilded leather cord surrounds each of the shapes.

Just for fun:

I always thought that the wearing of a pair of socks with open toed sandals was kind of a fashion faux pas! Well, I guess it is really an age old tradition. I had to laugh! I'll let you read the placard yourself.....

My last stop of the day was the V&A bookstore, where I found the book pictured below, which has beautiful photographs of the quilts the museum has in it's collection, although not on permanent display. Great find!

Here I am shivering outside the entrance after a long day exploring!

Thank you for spending some time with me on a virtual tour of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Until next time,
Martha 

Footnotes:
(1) More information on the Legend of Tristram quilt, was taken from Quilting, by Averil Colby, c 1971.

A trip to the Antique Textiles Company

Hello again, this time from London!

About six months ago I discovered the Antique Textiles Company on Facebook. Right away I could tell it was a very special shop. Never in a million years would I ever think that I would someday get to visit the shop in person.

But that is just what I did today.

I suppose that most people would immediately put on their "first to-do-when-in-London" list places such as Buckingham Palace (which happens to be across the park from my hotel), the Tower of London, Big Ben, etc., etc. But I have always been more interested in the everyday lives of people from times past and, of course quilts made by nameless men and women from times long ago, fit that category.

So, first on MY to-do list was to venture off to 
Hempstead in London to find the Antique Textiles Company. 

The streets of London are a maze to me...  

  

But, I found it! The quaint, charming, wonderland, the Antique Textiles Company!

Christopher Wilson-Tate is the proprietor of the shop, and his passion for, and knowledge about, old quilts and fabrics, was evident immediately.

Christopher graciously showed me many of his beautiful treasures, such as this beauty below, an early 1800's quilt covered with the most magnificent and beautiful crewelwork I have ever had the pleasure to see up close and in person. 

Christopher of Antique Textiles Company

Here are a few more photos of the outside of the shop, where you can catch little glimpses of more of the wonderful quilts piled high inside!

Me at the entrance to the Antique Textiles Company

And finally, a photo of a little corner of the treasure I came away with - a mosaic quilt top pieced with early nineteenth century fabrics....

That's all for now...this is my first blog post from a tablet out of town, so we'll see how it goes!

Until next time,

Martha

Quilt Appraisals New and Old

It has been busy, busy around here. I've been working on quilts, wool applique projects and just recently finished a pretty cute Halloween themed punch needle. One of those quilts will be published in one of my favorite magazines this year. It's ready to be shipped to the publisher, but before that can happen, it needed to be appraised.

There are a variety of reasons to have quilts appraised. In this instance, for insurance purposes, my new quilt needed to be appraised for it's value in the case of loss or damage. My biggest concern when I ship my quilts off to their various destinations is what happens in transit.

Look at these photos of a box of my quilts, shipped back from a magazine photo shoot in France, when they arrived back to me. 

Gasp! When I saw the postwoman struggling to get this box out of her truck, with foam peanuts falling out onto the street, I thought I would be sick. Luckily for me and my quilts, the publisher shipped my quilts back in the heavy duty vinyl bags as I had requested of them. The vinyl bag was the only thing protecting my quilts after this box was practically destroyed during shipment! Even the peanuts wouldn't have been any protection. Thankfully, my quilts survived!

Here is another example of a box in which one of my quilts was shipped back to me:

Unfortunately, this time, my quilt was not shipped back in the heavy duty vinyl bag in which it had originally been encased by me to the publisher. In fact, it was not even wrapped at all! Again, somehow, my quilt was okay.

Yesterday, I had my new quilt appraised by my friend and local certified quilt appraiser, Karen Housner. We met at my local quilt store, 3 Dudes Quilting, who graciously loaned us their classroom for the appraisals.

In addition to appraising my new quilt, Karen also appraised an antique quilt I had purchased maybe six years ago. Yes, high time I had it appraised! I was curious, too, if I had made a good investment. If not, I really love this quilt. It's a redwork quilt, in very good condition, hand quilted, with a date, and the name "Mary" embroidered on it. The maker or the recipient, I may never know.

Karen Housner measuring my redwork quilt for appraisal

"1908"

A closeup of the cute little gnomes

"Mary"

Each day of the week is represented by these hard-working teddy bears.

Yes, according to Karen's appraisal, I had indeed made a good investment! Although it's an added expense, having my quilts appraised definitely gives me a little bit of peace of mind in the unthinkable case of loss, theft or damage. I think it's also important for those around us to know the value in dollars and cents of these precious pieces of art!

I hope you enjoyed the pictures of my 1908 redwork quilt!

Until next time,

Martha