Reviews of Quilting Books
by Dawn E. Navarro
reviewed by MARY BOLAND,
HAGERSTOWN, MD
Okay. So I’m not a cat lover. But I have so many friends who are, I figure at some point I’m going to be roped into making one of them a cat quilt, so I should get a heads’ up and take a look at this little book.
I didn’t recognize the name Dawn Navarro, but I did recognize the design on the front cover. I’ve seen it often, and you probably have, too. It was originally conceived and created in 1985 when Navarro, not a quilter at that time, was a contributing design editor for HOME, the Sunday magazine of the Los Angeles Times. This edition preserves the original pattern, but the instructions and techniques to make it have been updated.
There are multiple styles of cats in the book. In the primary design, interlocking upside-down cats fill in spaces between the right-side up cats, so alternate rows of felines are standing on their feet, no matter which way the quilt is turned. The faces are embroidered, and each has a trapunto ball at its feet. There is also a simpler pattern of a sitting cat (with a little pocket) as well as one for feline dolls. The author provides suggestions for working with Minkee (I understand it can be very challenging) and constructing a chenille background.
It’s worth visiting Navarro’s website, www.mantapublications.com, just to see a photo of another quilt design she created, sea horses, which uses the same right-side up/upside-down technique. So far as I can tell, she has not yet written a pattern book to accompany the design. Let’s hope she does. Though sea horses are significantly less popular than cats, they would make a great quilt.
Navarro, Dawn E. Copy Cat Quilts. Bothell, Washington: That Patchwork Place, an Imprint of Martingale & Company, 2008. www.martingale-pub.com
Quilted Bed Runners, Pillows, and
More to Suit Your Style
by Leslee Evans
reviewed by MARY BOLAND,
HAGERSTOWN, MD
Bed runners. Have they been around since quilting immemorial? Or are they a recent innovation? They are decorative, of course, but they’re also great foot warmers and I’m sure they would have been greatly appreciated by people prior to central heating. If you are unfamiliar with their general form, they are about 30 inches wide, and they extend the width (plus drop) of the bed. They’re laid across the bottom of the mattress.
This book provides instructions for nine bed runners in a wide range of styles; four are reversible. Each pattern has coordinating pillowcases and shams of multiple shapes and sizes. The majority of the runners are straight-edged, but Evans varies her styles with steps, triangles, and fringe. To emphasize the bed runners in the book, all are pictured on white or off-white whole cloth quilts, although I think they would be equally charming laid atop coordinating bed quilts. As with all Martingale publications, basic instructions for making quilts are provided.
Quilters with cold feet (of the literal variety), beginning quilters who want smaller projects, or those who want to make a gift but don’t want to tackle a full-sized quilt should consider doing a bed runner. They’d work up quickly and be a nice touch to most any room.
Evans, Leslee. Make Your Bed: Quilted Bed Runners, Pillows, and More to Suit Your Style. Bothell, Washington: That Patchwork Place, an Imprint of Martingale & Company, 2011. www.martingale-pub.com
16 Designs from One Easy Technique
by Kathy Brown
reviewed by MARY BOLAND,
HAGERSTOWN, MD
Kathy Brown, a quilt designer, fabric designer, ruler designer, teacher, and writer from the great and glorious state of Louisiana, presents readers with sixteen easy-to-make and delightfully cheerful patterns. All the quilts in this book are made by assembling strip sets, cutting the sets into triangles with a 90o double-strip ruler, and then reassembling the pieces. Just that easy, huh?
Several have trompe l'oeil effects where straight lines appear to curve. This makes simple quilts appear complicated, and as we know, that tends to impress folks. [There is one pattern I question. It is made of squares within squares and the same technique of strip piecing and cutting is utilized. Perhaps I’m missing something, but that seems to be a really round-about way of making a solid block of one fabric.]
All the designs in this book and author’s choice of materials have a homey, fresh quality. Her instructions are clear. There is nothing in Strip Smart that is going to wow readers over with its originality, but that is not Brown’s goal. She’s aiming for nice and simple, and that she does provide.
P.S.
Years ago, I read a travelogue of a man who went to the People’s Republic of China. In it, he said all books should include at least one recipe. One of the designs in this book is entitled "Brownies à la Mode." Included in the photograph of the quilt is a plate of some of the most luscious looking brownies I have ever seen. I surely do wish Brown would have read the same book and included her recipe.
Brown, Kathy. Strip-Smart Quilts: 16 Designs from One Easy Technique. Bothell, Washington: That Patchwork Place, an Imprint of Martingale & Company, 2011. www.martingale-pub.com
For more information about Kathy Brown, see http://www.the-teachers-pet.com.
Review List
Barn Quilts ... by Suzi Parron with Donna Sue Groves (5.10.12)
Strip-Smart Quilts by Kathy Brown (5.4.12)
Make Your Bed by Leslee Evans (5.4.12)
Copy Cat Quilts by Dawn E. Navarro (5.4.12)
Quilts of Prince Edward Island by Sherrie Davidson (5.1.12)
Quilts in the Attic by Karen S. Musgrave (5.1.12)
The Hawaiian Quilt by Linda Boynton Arthur, Ph.D. (5.1.12)
The Farmer’s Wife Pony Club by Laurie Aaron Hird (4.12)
by Suzi Parron with Donna Sue Groves
reviewed by MARY BOLAND,
HAGERSTOWN, MD
Wow. This book, barn quilts, and the barn quilt movement are surely not what I expected them to be. I had assumed – with absolutely no basis whatsoever for my assumption – that somewhere, someone got the idea to paint a quilt block on a barn. Others saw the idea, liked it, copied it, and a grassroots movement blossomed. That’s not quite how events unfolded.
The story begins with Donna Sue Groves and her mother, Maxine. They were living in Ohio, and Donna Sue had just purchased a thirty-acre property, which had, in her words, “the ugliest barn I have ever seen in my life.” Quilting had been a tradition in the Groves family through multiple generations, so to honor her mother, and to brighten up her newly acquired eyesore, Donna Sue promised to paint a quilt square on the barn.1 Life interfered, as life is wont to do, and several years later, the barn had still not been painted.
Enter the director of Adams County Economic Development. One day she approached Donna Sue (who had told “everybody” about her plan) and suggested that they paint not just her own barn, but multiple barns, and then establish a driving tour to view them and capture tourism dollars. At the time, Donna Sue was working with the Ohio Appalachian Arts Initiative and the Ohio Arts Council; she instantly saw possibilities. The organizing committee decided to paint twenty barns, based on her mother’s estimate that it takes that many blocks to make an average bed-size quilt. (Maxine later created a sampler quilt to show how each finished barn block would look.) On 13 October 2001, the first quilt was unveiled and officially dedicated, not on Donna Sue’s barn, but on a more-public herb farm structure.
For me, the surprise of this book was to learn that barn quilts aren’t just personal artistic endeavors. They’re about money. I frequently rail about corporate greed, but money in this case is of the best kind: the kind that encourages economic development and serves the greater good.
State arts councils, chambers of commerce, and local business often provide initial funds to create the barn blocks. Quilt guilds, civic and school groups, arts councils, and 4-H clubs create the trails, usually on a county-wide basis, and they organize tours, which usually include stops at art galleries, farm stands, wineries and other local points of interest.
There is no formal registration requirement, so the exact number of painted structures is unknown. There are over 3,000 documented quilts in 29 states and Canada. Barns are the primary buildings on which the blocks are painted, but they can also found on bed and breakfasts, courthouses, eateries, libraries, manufacturing plants, playhouses, schools, and wineries. Sometimes the designs are painted directly onto a building’s surface. Other times, they are painted onto another surface and then attached to the building.
The book has over eighty full-color photographs. Most are of the barn quilts, of course, but some are of the painters or of the original, fabric quilts. I think my favorite2 is of Juney Sturgill (Carter County, Kentucky) holding open a quilt with the unlikely name of Mule Train (a single block quilt with the likeness of one sad old mule in its center) and made by her mother. Juney is standing in front of her barn with its painted block, which replicates the original pattern to a T. In my opinion, one of the most imaginative designs pictured in the book is the Motts’ barn in Ohio. Their Ohio Star block is painted directly on the building, but it wraps around the corner of the structure and right over a gutter.
Barn quilts are America, Mom, and apple pie. If a long, long driving trip to is not in your near future to view all these wonderful, creative, sometimes-eccentric works of art, pick up this book. It’s current events and living history, educational, fun, and – most of all - inspiring.
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1 When she was a teenager, the Groves had driven through Pennsylvania Dutch country, and Donna Sue remembered the hex signs painted on some of the barns. Though her memories may have influenced her decision to paint a quilt block on her barn, there is indication that her inspiration can be directly linked to Amish or old European traditions.
2 My favorite photograph, that is. It would be impossible to choose a favorite quilt block.
Parron, Suzi with Donna Sue Groves. Barn Quilts and the American Quilt Trail Movement. Athens, Ohio: Swallow Press, an imprint of Ohio University Press, 2012. www.ohioswallow.com
Suzi Parron’s website is americanquilttrail.com. It includes information about and links to quilt trails throughout the United States.
Letters from the Lucky Pony Winners of 1915 and 90 Blocks that Tell Their Stories
by Laurie Aaron Hird
reviewed by MARY BOLAND, HAGERSTOWN, MD
For those who like a little history with their quilting – and I’m one of them – this is the book for you.
I’ll let the author tell the story.
"In 1907, Edward A. Webb, the publisher of The Farmer’s Wife magazine, decided to appoint his India-born, missionary-trained sister to the position of editor. One of Ella S. Webb’s first decisions was to begin a contest that would prove to be the magazine’s most famous and successful. Miss Webb’s plan was to hire young children to sell subscriptions to their magazine. … In exchange for the children’s efforts, they received prizes, such as bicycles, talking machines, cameras, and rifles. It can only be supposed, however, that most of the children were working for the grand prize, a Shetland pony…. In the early years of their pony-club contest, the company had a credibility problem. While trying to obtain subscriptions, the children were often told that the contest was not genuine – that they would never receive the much-hoped-for Shetland pony. To prove the contest’s authenticity, the editors asked the children to send in photographs of themselves with their ponies. Over one hundred children sent thank you letters with their photographs. The Farmer’s Wife Pony Club ended twelve years later in 1918, but not before they had given away over 500 ponies…"
Let me repeat that last part, “...not before they had given away over 500 ponies…” Not pictures of ponies. Not stuffed-animal ponies. Not toy ponies. They gave away flesh-and-blood, snorting, pooping, tail-swishing, gotta-be-feed-and-groomed-and-cared-for actual ponies. Does that wow you or what? [I visualize kids living in upper-floor apartments in New York City and mothers explaining over and over again why it would not be a good idea for them to enter the contest.]
The author of this book, Laurie Aaron Hird, owns one of the most complete collections of The Farmer’s Wife. She selected some children’s letters from the magazine, chose quilt blocks to represent the letters, and assembled them into a charming sampler quilt. [The book also includes a CD which contains templates, line diagrams, foundation patterns, and rotary cutting measurements to make the blocks. In scanning the CD, the instructions appear to need more details, at least for this particular quilter, but perhaps actual usage would show them to be sufficient.] The blocks range from the simple to the complex, although I believe most could be made by those with basic quilting skills.
I usually don’t like quilt books where the author connects events with blocks he/she has chosen to represent that event; often the connections seem tenuous at best. But most of Hird’s choices seem appropriate. Sometimes the block names are the same as the pony’s or the child’s, and sometimes they relate to a location (such as the name of the pony’s new home). Usually though, the author picked blocks which relate to something the child wrote in his or her letter. For example, Wuzzy the pony’s block is called Floral Bouquet because he liked to bite blossoms off mother’s flowers, and Bruce’s block is called Star of Hope because both the winner of the pony and her brother had health issues.
My only quibble with this book – and I admit, it’s more than a little unfair - is that Hird does not provide her readers with the end of any story. I can’t help but think that in some cases those ponies significantly changed the lives of some of the recipients and their families, and it would make interesting reading to know who and how and why. I acknowledge that it would take a lot of digging to uncover any of those endings, and providing a historical record was not one of the goals of this volume. Although the author is presenting history, this is not a history book. It’s a quilt book. It’s also a delightful slice of Americana. I highly recommend it.
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Note: This is Hird’s second Farmer's Wife book. The first, The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt: Letters from 1920s Farm Wives and the 111 Blocks They Inspired, was published in 2009 and is still available for purchase.
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Hird, Laurie Aaron. The Farmer’s Wife Pony Club Sampler Quilt: Letters from the Lucky Pony Winners of 1915 and 90 Blocks that Tell Their Stories. Shullsburg, WI: Dunbarton Press, LLC, 2011. http://thefarmerswifequilt.blogspot.com/
by Karen S. Musgrave
reviewed by MARY BOLAND,
HAGERSTOWN, MD
Non-fiction books on quilting usually fall into one of two categories: how-to / pattern books or art / history volumes filled with photographs. Quilts in the Attic is a different species. It’s a little book of stories about quilts, quilters, quilt collectors, and quilt finds. Each of the 30 vignettes is accompanied by a photograph of the quilt discussed. There are a few well-known names within its pages, and it has photos of / stories about some of those breathtaking masterpieces which we all admire. For the most part though, the narratives are about nice, although not necessarily outstanding, quilts and come from people like us, the millions of non-professionals who love the craft.
Some of the tales are flat-out wonderful. I think my favorite is the one where a woman walked into a tent at a quilt show in Oregon “urgently” needing to find a home for one of her quilts. She didn’t want to go through the long processes of donating the quilt to a museum and she didn’t want to sell it; she wanted to give it away. The woman, the artist and writer then known as Andrea Balosky, now known as Nyima Llamo, had converted to Buddhism and was giving away all her worldly possessions. One man held out his hand, and not one, but two exquisite quilts (as well as her book and other documents) were his. (Okay. So I feel, strongly, that the man should donate the quilt to a museum, but that doesn’t negate the writer’s original intent.)
Although the stores are true, for me this book falls into the same category as quilting fiction: something to be listened to on CD* while I’m sewing, or something to be read when I need a little push to get me back to my machine. However you use it, it’s a pleasant diversion.
Complaint (my usual): The book needs an index. A flyer from the publisher mentions Mary Lee Bendolph of Gee’s Bend fame; Marie Webster, the designer of appliqué quilts of the 1900s; and, Ruby Short McKim, co-owner (with her husband) of McKim Studios, their home-based mail-order business. I had to go through the book twice to find their entries. This was an unnecessary waste of time for me sitting at home; it would be really annoying to someone standing in a bookstore trying to decide if she wanted to buy the volume.
*Note: this book is not – yet? – available on CD.
Musgrave, Karen S. Quilts in the Attic: Uncovering the Hidden Stories of the Quilts We Love. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Voyageur Press, an Imprint of MBI Publishing Company, 2012. http://www.qbookshop.com
Voyageur Press has produced some of my favorite quilt books. Although it publishes texts on patterns and techniques, its real strength is its books on the history of the art of quilting: Around the Quilt Frame, Journey of Hope, Once upon a Quilt, Quilts around the World, The Quilt, and The Quilters Hall of Fame.
I encourage those want to know more about our wonderful calling to go to the publisher’s website. It not only identifies current publications, but it also highlights upcoming books. Users can sign up to receive e-mails. [Unfortunately, the categories on the home page of the website do not match the categories listed on the e-mail sign-up page, and users are not able to narrow their preferences to receive information only about quilt books (as opposed to “crafts”) but… that’s why God created the delete key.]
A Unique American Art Form
by Linda Boynton Arthur, Ph.D.
reviewed by MARY BOLAND,
HAGERSTOWN, MD
I usually do not read books on quilting from cover-to-cover. I look at the pictures (bemoan the fact that I have so little time to quilt and have so little talent), and read selected paragraphs. This book was an exception. I started at page one and read each word through to the last, including the Appendix. It provides a short history of Hawai’i, an understanding of the history of the production of Hawaiian quilts, the multiple quilt styles, and the evolution of those styles.
The volume divides quilts into three categories: traditional, contemporary, and “other” which includes flag, embroidered, patchwork, and island/Hawaiian-cultural style. The latter two chapters include lovely examples of Hawaiian quilts (many of the contemporary quilts pictured have a distinctive cultural style), but I would guess that when most people think of Hawaiian quilts, they are thinking of the traditional form.
Many of us would be able to recognize traditional Hawaiian (or Hawaiian style) quilts without being able to rattle off what it is that makes them distinguishable. Arthur defines four characteristics: large, symmetrical designs; two contrasting colors, generally a bright color on a light background; echo quilting around the design; and, designs inspired by the tropical environment and / or island theme or events.
The author tells us about the importance of kapu (prohibitions) on traditional quilts: the quilt maker must “feel right” in her heart as she works on a quilt, she* should never quilt at night, quilt on black, mix certain colors, or depict animals or people on the quilts, and – most importantly – share quilt patterns. Unlike the social (and practical) quilting bees of the mainland U.S., Hawaiian quilters frequently created their own patterns and intentionally worked in isolation. Due to the complexity of traditional patterns, the quilts are made almost exclusively by hand. The investment of time required to make such quilts, not surprisingly, means that the number of people who make them is on the wane.
The text is not without its flaws. Some of the writing is repetitious, and although the author presents many wonderful photographs of Hawaiian quilts, most descriptions do not include the date of completion. (As Arthur is curator of the Washington State University’s Historic Textiles and Costume Collection, this seems particularly egregious.). She describes Queen Lili’uokalani’s crazy quilt as, “The best known, and perhaps most poignant [example]…”, but she does not provide her readers with a picture of the quilt. And the last chapter of the book, island style, with its numerous photographs of quilts made in the Philippines and China, diminishes rather than enhances the overall quality of the book. Notwithstanding these complaints, this is a comprehensive, well-researched volume. If you are interested in Hawaiian history, culture, or quilts, it is worth a trip to your bookstore or library.
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* My use of the feminine pronoun is deliberate. Men sometimes assisted women with various aspects of quilt-making, but they rarely, if ever, made quilts themselves.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – A Bit of Historical Context
Chapter 2 – Traditional Hawaiian Quilts
Chapter 3 – Contemporary Hawaiian Quilts
Chapter 4 – The “Other” Hawaiian Quilts
Chapter 5 – Hawaiian Quilts and Island Style Interior Design
Glossary
Appendix – Resource Guide for Quilting in Hawai’i
Arthur, Linda Boynton, Ph.D. The Hawaiian Quilt: A Unique American Art Form. Waipahu, Hawai’i: Island Heritage Publishing, a Division of the Madden Corporation, 2011. www.islandhertige.com
The Fabric of Rural Life
by Sherrie Davidson
reviewed by MARY BOLAND,
HAGERSTOWN, MD
If you are looking for an all-quilts-all-the-time-type book, move on. This book’s focus is quilting - it has many photographs of quilts and quilters, but it’s more like a scrapbook than formal documentary text. It contains newspaper articles, diaries, letters, biographies, short histories of Prince Edward Island (PEI) and private homes, and even several recipes. (The rhubarb relish sounds delicious.) Why the interest in PEI? That’s not made clear. The author’s blurb says she now lives in Nashville, so it certainly wasn’t for the sake of convenience. Perhaps she was born on the island, or perhaps Anne of Green Gables, set in PEI, is her favorite work of fiction. [Quilts of PEI has a chapter devoted to the novel’s author, Lucy Maud Montgomery, and the quilts in her real life and in her stories.]
Davidson’s original objectives, to document the history of quilts of PEI from its beginning through 1970 and to publish a book of her findings, were very ambitious goals for a solo endeavor. [My own quilt guild tackled a similar project, and it took several years and many hands to complete.*] The author describes her survey process, and after the book’s introduction, she discusses “Precious Cloth for the Settlers” (Islanders frequently face extremely cold weather, and quilts were a necessity, not primarily artistic endeavors.) and what is assumed the oldest known quilt of PEI. The other chapters focus on specific types of quilts or particular time periods and include multi-page biographies of their makers.
Most of the examples presented are of familiar patterns and colours, although a few are distinctly PEI (scenes of the island, an abundance of red and white quilts, a particularly-favorite colour combination). Two of the quilts pictured are made of some of the most unusual fabric I have ever heard used: hats (presumably wool or felt) and fabric “used for foundation garments such as corsets and brassieres”. (The latter looks as pretty as it sounds.) Davidson tells us in her description of the survey process that she completed a questionnaire on each quilt. Unfortunately, she fails to provide the details she collected, so we can only guess the finished size and the fabrics used in the construction of the quilts.
The author’s enthusiasm shines throughout the text. Her love of quilts, her dedication to the process of recording quilt history, and her appreciation of and to the quilters who created the wonderful pieces proffered make this a very special book, even for those of us who are not lucky enough to live on this lovely island.
*Quilt Treasures of Yesteryear: Antique Quilts of Franklin County, Pennsylvania. (2009) The book is available through the Chambersburg Quilt Guild, http://chambersburgquiltguild.org
Davidson, Sherrie. Quilts of Prince Edward Island: The Fabric of Rural Life. Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada: Nimbus Publishing, 2010. www.nibus.ns.ca
