From Blue Box Auction: "Join us as we unveil the Kaye England Quilt Collection in our Featured Quilt Auction on March 9, 2024 at 12:00pm EST. This exclusive event presents a remarkable selection of 20 antique quilts from Kaye’s collection, and 20 additional quilts created by Kaye in honor of some of the most important women in history including: First Ladies Washington, Taft and Coolidge, and others including Amelia Earhart, Helen Keller and Lucille Ball. The collection also includes photos and autographs of some of the featured women in the collection."
Last week we featured an exhibit of Gee's Bend quilts that were on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In the same gallery was a collection of furniture covered with digitally reproduced designs of those quilts. Learn about this exclusive furniture collection celebrating the work of Mary Lee Bendolph, Delia Bennett, Annie E. Pettway, Loretta Petway, and Magdalene Wilson of Gee's Bend.
The Quilt Show recently visited Philadelphia and ran across this exhibit featuring the quilts of Gee's Bend at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (there through July 7, 2024) that we wanted to share with you. Of the quilts on display, the museum said, "The 13 quilts on view were acquired in 2017 through the Souls Grown Deep Foundation and were selected to tell the history of quilt-making in Gee's Bend (Alabama) from the mid-1920s to 2005. The significance of these quilts to their makers is expressed in the quilters' own words gathered from contemporary interviews."
Take a sneak peek at the DAR Museum's upcoming exhibit, Sewn in America: Making - Meaning - Memory, which "will examine dressmaking innovations from 1770 to the 1920s."
From the DAR Museum: "Our costume curator and some of her colleagues are going to try some 19th century dressmaking methods in preparation for next year’s exhibition, “Sewn in America: Making, Meaning, Memory,” which will look (among other things) at the evolution of home dressmaking."
The curator of costumes at the DAR Museum, and her summer intern Bella, have been dressing mannequins in storage to prepare for a photo shoot for an upcoming exhibition and catalog. In this post, they share some of the tips for getting the shape of the dresses just right. Between you and me, I don't know how they managed to wear this much clothing and tolerate the heat and humidity. It's an interesting look at the fashion of the past.
A quilt that is almost 220 years old has been added to the collection of the Maine State Museum. Inscribed in the fabric with the year 1804, this quilt by an anonymous quilter makes it the oldest known dated quilt in their collection. Click through to find out more about this fascinating piece of history.
NATRA Restoration discovered a SINGER Sewing Machine from 1894 out in the wild disregarded and ravaged by time. They took it upon themselves to restore it back to its former glory. "The machine, which was left in the henhouse, rusted and worn out, was restored and put into working condition. It was completed after 2 months of long work. Enjoy watching!" Click through and see a video of the restoration process which produced a stunning machine that looked like it came off the shelf yesterday.
This wallet from the DAR museum looks brand new. The colors are amazing, as is the handwork, but embroidered on the wallet is the date 1776. Do you think your work will survive for over 200 years?
What is the most delicate thing you have worked with? Silk, lace, antique fabric? Well, how about STRAW!?!? That's right, this dress made in 1865 was embroidered with straw and is part of the collection of the Weinmuseum in Italy. Find out how the straw was used to create this stunning ball gown that has lasted for over 150 years!
From the DAR Museum, "Quilting, and sewing and crafts more generally, are known to have therapeutic effects. Many invalids take up knitting or sewing projects not just to pass the time, but because the meditative repetitiveness is soothing. Surely too, a sense of accomplishment while physically limited, has a beneficial effect. Occupational therapists use sewing and other needlework in their toolkit." See how Nellie Everhart of Jennings, Indiana in 1879 took the repetitive quilting therapy process to new heights to create a quilt that is 60" by 79", but all of the pieces are just 2/3 of an inch square!
From the BBC News, "A scrap of fabric found in a Highland peat bog 40 years ago is likely to be the oldest tartan ever discovered in Scotland, new tests have established. The fabric is believed to have been created in about the 16th Century, making it more than 400 years old."
Congratulations to Michael A. Cummings, who was just named a 2023 NEA Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts. Michael, who was previously featured on The Quilt Show in a field piece, brings his quilts to life with a rich level of artistry and history. In this Go Tell It at the Quilt Show! interview from the Quilt Alliance, you'll be able to see both on display as he talks about his Frida Kahlo quilt.
From George Washington's Mount Vernon, "In 1766, Martha Washington acquired from London upholsterer Philip Bell the materials needed to create "one dozn. Chair bottoms." Over the next thirty-six years, she carefully cross-stitched a scallop-shell design she herself possibly created. This cushion is one of six in Mount Vernon's collection."
We found these fabulous antique quilts lining the wall in the ballroom at Road to California 2023. Enjoy quilts featuring Carolina Lilies, Grandmother's Flower, Cross Stitch, and more. This exhibition highlights traditional quilts and quilting from the past that just might inspire what you make in the future.
Join the DAR Museum, February 14, 2023 at 12pm (Eastern) for their Virtual Tuesday Talk, Sheets Don't Sew Themselves: Calculating the Sewing in Pre-Industrial Women's Lives.
Lilo Bowman, Editor-in-Chief and Production Manager for The Quilt Show, has made a Go Tell It video for the Quilt Alliance to preserve the story of her quilt, Looking at the Stars and Thinking of You, which she made in honor of her sons when they lived and worked overseas. It is a perfect story for this holiday season, especially when we can't be with the ones we love.
From the de Young Museum: "Produced on the occasion of the exhibition “Faith Ringgold: American People” at the de Young museum, and directed by LeRon Lee, this film tells the story of Black artist and activist Faith Ringgold, who has dedicated her life and artistic practice to amplifying the struggle for justice and equity of Black people in the United States and particularly of Black women."
The AIDS Memorial Quilt marked its 35th anniversary with its largest display ever in San Francisco in Golden Gate Park. This was also the largest version of the quilt on view anywhere within the last decade. Take a look and learn the history of one of the most important quilts to have been made, and "considered the largest community arts project in the world, has more than 50,000 individually sewn panels with more than 110,000 names."
"Numerous Louis Vuitton steamer trunks sat abandoned for decades in a forgotten storeroom in a fifteenth-century Florentine villa. When a painting conservator eventually stumbled upon the trunks, what she found inside were not only 38 beautiful gowns, but a lost piece of fashion history was also unpacked, along with the life of Hortense Mitchell Acton, the wealthy American banking heiress who owned them." - Antique Trader