WOQ is Women Seaming Business and Spirit Together in the Creative Arts.
Tele-events with successful quilt business women live from the comfort of your home or office.
Receive email notices about
upcoming interviews & classes, and my special report "Sparking Your Creativity" is your gift.
New Pathways into Quilt History written by Kimberly Wulfert,
www.antiquequiltdating.com
Book
Review by Kimberly Wulfert, PhD
AMERICAN QUILTMAKING 1970 - 2000
By Eleanor Levie
2004,
pub. by American Quilter's Society
As I read this book, I tried to imagine myself
as a quilt historian and quilter in the year 2050. What came to mind was
the wish that someone in the 1850s would have done the same thing for us. It
was so much fun to read a history book about quilts that was describing an era
I lived through . . . an antique quilt became my bedcover in 1974, and I took my
first quilting class in 1976.
Eleanor Levie reveals wonderful tidbits and secrets through quotes, facts
and interviews with quilters we all know and appreciate, who are pioneers in the
revolution that began in the second half of the 20th century. For instance,
Penny McMorris talks about the first time with her TV show audience when she
was trying to teach them to use the Electric Quilt software program her
husband invented. She had no idea how it worked. From under the desk, out of
view of the cameras, sat her husband and together they were able to make it
look like she did. The story is delightful. It is anecdotes like these that
make this book really special and intimate for the reader.
Eleanor taps into designer fabrics and trends as they appeared on the market -- reproduction fabrics, plaids, African prints, hand
dyes -- telling us
who, when, what,
and sometimes the why. This
is a fun chapter down memory lane, or was it a walk through my stash? She takes a similar stroll through
quilt styles, devoting a chapter each to patchwork, appliqué, and quilting.
Not too long ago, my List Serve quilt friends were trying to recall who
started or invented the rotary cutter in quiltmaking. This book gives every
detail. After reading about it, I don't think I have ever heard the whole
story . Here is a hint: it was invented to cut many layers of fabric for
kimonos in Japan, and Marti Mitchell wasn't just making templates! Now how
about the first wide ruler?
I found the book to be full of truly interesting and sometimes astounding
information right from the start. Although Eleanor tells the reader in the
Introduction that this book can be read in any order they prefer, I chose to
start with Chapter One, what I would describe as the social history of the last
25 years of expansion. On the first page, we learn that Irene Preston Miller
and her willing, albeit bewildered friends, made an appliquéd pictorial quilt
that raised $23,100 through an auction to raise funds to clean the Hudson
River. That is a great deal of money for a group quilt to bring in, even in
today's quilt market, and this happened in 1972. This quilt is now in the
collection of the American Folk Art Museum in NYC.
Quilts and women were strong then, and they just kept on getting stronger.
Women have been raising money through quilts since before the Civil War.
Eleanor describes the period following the Civil War, 1860 -1880, as the first
quilt revival. The second revival came because of the depression in the
1930s, and the third revival began in the early 1970s, following the post-war
adjustment period.
So you think 1970 is too early? The National Quilt Association (NQA),
sponsored their first quilt show in 1970, and Quilter's Newsletter Magazine (QNM), began as a newsletter for their quilting
mail order business, in
1969. Ladies Patchwork Circle magazine began in 1970. In the 1960s, however,
women's magazines began putting quilts on their cover because they sold their
magazines like crazy, and they put patterns and ideas inside. Eleanor believes
this was a wake up call to sewing, fabric and quilt related companies. She
credits Quilt Market, started by Karey Bresenhan and her mother Jewel Patterson in 1979, as the turning point where quilting went from hobby to
big business.
There is another comparison Eleanor draws I found as equally interesting: she likens the
birth of guild-sponsored quilt shows to the 'show and tells,' which began in their
monthly meetings, and before that, informally during private quilt
get-togethers women held in their homes. Formalized quilt guilds didn't begin
until the late 1970s. Guild Round Robins and quilt challenges came in the late
1980s, and mystery quilt projects came about a decade after that.
The many photographs in the book help to bring our color sense back to
the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. I don't necessarily like to go there myself, but they
bring the text into better focus, let's say. There's always the last chapter,
where Eleanor writes about the Art Quilt movement, to bring us back to the full
spectrum of colors.
Since I am a quilter who also cherishes antique quilts and the history
supporting their characteristics, I found it fascinating that the first
two major quilt study associations to form were both predicated on the history
of quilts. The first was the Quilter's Hall of Fame (QHF), started by
Hazel
Carter (see an interview with Hazel), in Virginia, in 1979. (In case you haven't heard, the restored home of
Marie Webster had its Grand Opening in July 2004, which is where the
Hall of Fame will reside.) The second was the American Quilt Study Group (AQSG).
It was started right here in California, near San Francisco, by Sally Garoutte,
in 1980. They had their first seminar that same year. Today, it is housed at the
University of Nebraska at Lincoln and is dedicated to the study of quilt
history. (For more information on either organization, go to my
Links
page; both are
worthy of your support through membership.) Not long after, in 1981, Shelly
Zegart developed The Kentucky Quilt Project, the first statewide quilt documentation
organization. Reading this book, you realize that we are making history.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I learned a lot and laughed many
times. From start to finish, I related. I highly recommend you read this book
and keep it on your shelf for reference. It will likely be a college textbook
soon, as there is no other book like it. My sense is that it will be reprinted
for decades to come.
and sometimes the why. This
is a fun chapter down memory lane, or was it a walk through my stash? She takes a similar stroll through
quilt styles, devoting a chapter each to patchwork, appliqué, and quilting.