QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Saturday, July 30, 2016

Morris Hexagon 13: Oxford Rose

Morris Hexagon #13 Oxford Rose.

The kite shape, a four-sided tessellation, works perfectly into a hexagon.
It's an easy block to celebrate our half-way point: 13 of 26.

Morris Hexagon #13 Oxford Rose by Becky Brown

Six identical shapes fussy cut from my Morris Modernized CFA Voysey.
The print is "Oswin."



I named this week's hexie Oxford Rose for the Old Library at the Oxford Union at the University, which is decorated with rose windows based on the same hexagonal geometry. 

Walls and ceiling around the rose windows were painted by 
William Morris and his friends soon after Morris graduated from Oxford.

The library building for the Oxford Union Debating Society was begun in 1856 by architect Benjamin Woodward. Morris and friend Dante Gabriel Rossetti volunteered to decorate the ceiling and the apse, the curved area around the windows, in a theme based on tales of King Arthur.

Max Beerbohm's cartoon of Rossetti painting the Search of the Holy Grail.
Their employer Benjamin Jowett asked only one question about
the whole dubious escapade:
"And what were they going to do with the Grail when they found it?"

These unknown artists in their twenties must have inspired some confidence, but they had no idea what they were undertaking. The major problem was their ignorance of fresco techniques and how to prepare plaster for paint. Their work has required a good deal of repair and restoration over the past century and a half. 

Morris's style was already developed by the
time he painted the ceilings in his early 20s.

John Ruskin, art critic and historian, had something to do with supervising the group of seven or eight artists, which included another Morris college friend Edward Burne-Jones. Ruskin complained they were "all the least bit crazy and it's very difficult to manage them."

Exterior view of the Oxford Union rose windows.

Pauline Trevelyan was a friend of Ruskin's who watched the painting. In November, 1857 she wrote in her diary:
"The Union is going on slowly,...they are seeing now themselves that the tremendously dark strong colours in the roof injure the pictures....I am sorry to say that they are also finding the work won't last, much of it even now gets scaling off....they will be very fine and striking. I hope they last..."
The decorations have lasted to some degree and can be viewed for a small fee at Oxford any time the Library is open .



Pattern for an 8" Hexagon
(4" sides)

To Print:
  • Create a word file or a new empty JPG file that is 8-1/2" x 11". 
  • Click on the image above. 
  • Right click on it and save it to your file. 
  • Print that file out 8-1/2" x 11". The hexagon should measure 4" on the sides.
  • Adjust the printed page size if necessary.
  • Add seams when you cut the fabric.

The hexagonal block, here set with a hexagon in the mid-20th-century,
is BlockBase #243


Published names:
  • Colonial Garden From Grandmother Clark
  • Rose Star One Patch from the Laura Wheeler/Alice Brooks column
  • Tumbling Hexagons in Quilters Newsletter in 1974
On the left a cardboard template for the Colonial Garden quilt from
Grandmother Clark

One way to set the blocks is to stack them with a 60 degree diamond



Each block is framed with a long hexagon strip,
in a quilt from about 1960.

Seven in a miniquilt by Lois Pio

Here's a ring of six blocks around an embroidered butterfly
from the Nebraska Project and the Quilt Index

Another ring of six by Lucy Jones, about
1900, from the West Virginia project,
photo from the Quilt Index.

 The kite shape
can be shaded in complex fashion,


 as today's quilters familiar with the Rose Star pattern can attest.

Rose Star quilt probably made from
an Alice Brooks/Laura Wheeler pattern.

1949 ad for a pattern  "Just one easy-to-handle patch ..."

The pattern was reprinted in Ladies Circle Patchwork Quilts
and most recently in the book Material Obsession Two

as Jazz Hands by Sarah Fielke

Barbara Chainey's design wall

Morris and Burne Jones Families in 1874,
about 15 years after they finished the Oxford Union walls and ceiling

Artists William Morris (standing at top) and Edward Burne-Jones (at left) remained friends for life. Perhaps the most important event associated with the Oxford Union windows is the employment of Oxford resident Jane Burden (in front of Morris) to model for the Arthurian scenes. Both Morris and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti fell in love with her. She married Morris.

Jane Burden Morris's Blue Plaque in Oxford

One More Inspiration

Meeting in the center: another odd shape that works with hexagons...
from an early-19th-century quilt.

See a little more about the Beerbohm cartoon and the murals at the Tate's site:

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Celebrate! Make a Quilt

Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting in 1872

As the First Lady said: We take it for granted today that a woman can be nominated for President by
a major political party. 

Let's not. I hope we are drinking champagne, eating ice cream out of the carton and planning how we can carry on the dreams of Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul and all the others who worked for this day.



Alice Paul

Make a quilt!
Here's what you need for your 2016 patchwork:
Hillary Clinton fabric.

Hamilton---The Quilt (detail) by Georgann Eglinski, 2016

Georgann has been working on this quilt with a Hewson panel, listening to Hamilton The Musical and reading an Alexander Hamilton biography. All so 2016! (If not 1816)


Where'd she get that Hillary Clinton 2106 campaign print?

I Photoshopped it. I did two different prints.

This one is a little portrait that says....

2016 on a star background

I also colored it in tan too. Print either of these 8-1/2" x 11"
JPGs on treated fabric and you can include them in
your 2016 quilts.

I also created a double portrait of
Susan B Anthony and Hillary R Clinton.
These sheets are all 8-1/2" x 11".

My inspiration was this jugate portrait fabric ( political collectors' jargon for double portrait) of George Washington and Benjamin Harrison, printed for the 1888 election.


Here's what I am working on.
The star center is cut to fit the 8-1/2" x 11" sheet. (Star finishes to 8-1/2")
Do remember you can print these out in different sizes
and if you have some photo enhancing skills you could
change the colors to match the quilt you are working on.

A little Photoshopping on an old motto

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Playing the Old Lady Card: Instagram

Well, I hate to play the old lady card.

But who knew?


Being terribly unhip and liking it that way I have never paid any attention to Instagram.



Now I find out I have a hashtag.
#barbarabrackman

People post pictures of things they have made from my patterns and fabric.

CherryNougat

There are at least four hashtags you might use:

#barbarabrackman
#morrishexathon
#showmethemoda
#westeringwomen

And please do!

Country Rose

eliza_quilter

dennielebohannon
Keep it up, you hipsters.


I am going to have to get a smarter phone.
Click here to see these photo categories:

#morrishexathon
https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/morrishexathon/?hl=en

#westering women
https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/westeringwomen/?hl=en

#barbarabrackman
https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/barbarabrackman/?hl=en

#showmethemoda
https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/showmethemoda/?hl=en

Barb added one more:
#starsinatimewarp
https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/starsinatimewarp/?hl=en

I need a nap.