Triangles, Triangles Everywhere

Editor's Note: To celebrate the grand opening of the newly expanded Quilt House gallery, International Quilt Study Center & Museum team members are blogging about pieces in the gallery's inaugural exhibition, "Getting to Know You."

Patchwork, maker unknown, Thailand,
circa 1980. IQSCM 2008.012.0006.

By Marin Hanson
Curator of Exhibitions

Repeating triangles. It's a thing with quiltmakers everywhere. This quilt from Thailand inspired me to look through the International Quilt Study Center & Museum's collections and find some other examples of the obsessive triangles phenomenon. Enjoy!

UNITED STATES. c. 1850, probably Pennsylvania,
Holstein Collection, 2003.003.0305

UNITED STATES, c. 1890-1910,
possibly Posey County, Indiana,
James Collection, 1997.007.0085

UNITED STATES - AMISH,
c. 1975, L. Miller, Probably Wayne County,
Ohio, James Collection, 1997.007.0501

UNITED STATES - AFRICAN AMERICAN,
c. 1975-1985, Dennis Jones, Pickens County, Alabama,
Cargo Collection, 2000.004.0051

KYRGYZSTAN, c. 1930-1940, 2011.040.0016

PAKISTAN, Sindh,
c. 1970-1990, 2000.003.0004

CHINA, c. 2010, He Xiuxian (maker),
Jialiang, Guizhou Province, 2014.027.0010

British Mania

Editor's Note: To celebrate the upcoming grand opening of the newly expanded Quilt House gallery, International Quilt Study Center & Museum team members are blogging about pieces in the gallery's inaugural exhibition, "Getting to Know You."

Medallion, maker unknown, probably made in Allendale region,
England, United Kingdom, circa 1830. IQSCM 2007.014.0001.

By Laura Chapman
Communications Coordinator

I have been a bit of an anglophile since middle school, when I watched Sliding Doors and Notting Hill. That was about the same time my dad introduced me to Monty Python's Flying Circus, and I watched a multi-part documentary on Beatlemania with my parents. That probably prompted me to spend high school reading everything by Helen Fielding, Lisa Jewell, and Jane Austen. By the time I went to college, I knew I was a bit obsessed.

Imagine my excitement when the summer before my senior year, I had an opportunity to travel to England with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications.

Not only did I get to see amazing things like Platform 9 ¾ at Kings Cross Station…

Hogwarts bound!

And tour London…

My classmates and I before attending Sunday
service at Westminster Abbey.

But I also saw a lot of quilts. UNL sent us to England as part of a depth reporting project on the international scope of quilts and quiltmaking. We were working on a magazine and documentary to be released in conjunction with the grand opening of the International Quilt Study Center & Museum at Quilt House in spring 2008.

We went to England, because there were excellent sources for us to interview at the Victoria & Albert Museum and British Museum in London. We were also fortunate enough to meet with Bridget Long, an IQSCM associate fellow, and one of her friends in Ashwell, near Cambridge.

The main elements of our research took place at the International Festival of Quilts in Birmingham. While our friends at the IQSCM, who are now my colleagues, told us the festival would be bigger than we could imagine, I wasn't prepared for the frenzy of activity that would meet us. We saw hundreds of quilts, including a mixture of historical, contemporary, and art quilts. And we also met wonderful people, both in our interviews and by mingling in the crowd.

Though this British quilt looks different than any of the pieces I saw during that trip in 2007, it reminds me of the festival and of one of the greatest experiences in my life.

Black and Blue

Editor's Note: To celebrate the upcoming grand opening of the newly expanded Quilt House gallery, International Quilt Study Center & Museum team members are blogging about pieces in the gallery's inaugural exhibition, "Getting to Know You."

Checkerboard, maker unknown, made in United States,
circa 1800-1820. IQSCM 1997.007.0376

By Carolyn Ducey
Curator of Collections

This quilt calls to my heart. There is something so dramatic about the blue and black squares on point that I love. Rich, dark, pulsing… But then, you notice the candy cane outer border. The turquoise blue is just the right shade lighter than the center blue, so it adds a flash of color. The pale pink, in parallelograms that point upward, literally pushes your eye back to the quilt – a remarkably effective design element. Then, when you think you’ve seen it all, look – the maker brought the three border colors used together in the bottom center. Aaaaah, it just literally makes my eyes happy.

And, if you are lucky enough to have worked with this quilt, you know that is it composed of wool, some loosely woven but fused to create a luscious shine. The light plays with the designs the quilter used to join the layers… carefully crafted floral patterns.

I want to hug this quilt  – even though it is a bit stiff and scratchy. I want to wrap myself in this particular woman’s vision and just feel her creative  spirit for a moment. Wow.

Game Boards, Old and New

Editor's Note: To celebrate the upcoming grand opening of the newly expanded Quilt House gallery, International Quilt Study Center & Museum team members are blogging about pieces in the gallery's inaugural exhibition, "Getting to Know You."

Kantha, maker unknown, made in Bangladesh,
circa 1900-1925. IQSCM 2012.001.0004.

By Marin Hanson
Curator of Exhibitions

For many reasons, this kantha piqued my interest as soon as I saw it. I love the Hindu gods Krishna and Radha in the center; I can never resist an elephant; and the British cavalry soldier clearly references India's colonial past (and I was a history major, after all). But obviously, the snakes are the showstoppers here. Every time I look at them, they remind me of board games – Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, even Life. Those were the games I liked as a child, the ones where you seemed to be going on an adventure – linear, yes, but definitely twisty and turny.

So I started poking around online and found out that Chutes and Ladders, a Milton Bradley board game first released in 1943, was simply a version of an old Indian game called Snakes and Ladders. In the game, you roll a die to move through the numbered squares on the grid; if you land on a square with a ladder, you ascend one or more rows, but if you land on a snake, you descend, sometimes all the way back to the beginning.

Snakes and Ladders, India, 19th century

Chutes and Ladders, c. 1952. ("Cnl03" by DASHbot.
Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia)

In the Indian game, Hindu ideas of morality were abundant: "The ladders represented virtues such as generosity, faith, and humility, while the snakes represented vices such as lust, anger, murder, and theft. The morality lesson of the game was that a person can attain salvation (Moksha) through doing good, whereas by doing evil one will inherit rebirth to lower forms of life. The number of ladders was less than the number of snakes as a reminder that a path of good is much more difficult to tread than a path of sins" (Wikipedia). In the Western version, much of this morality is absent, but the fun of seeing who can make it to the top first is still there.

I now want to figure out if I could turn this kantha into a board game of some kind. How would you do it?

A Visit to the University of Alberta

By Carolyn Ducey
Curator of Collections

Last week I was honored to be invited by the Department of Human Ecology at the University of Alberta to speak about my research on quilts made by the Evangelical Sewing Society of the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia – a small part of my dissertation research. Like I told the audience, being asked to talk about your research is like someone sincerely – really! – requesting you show your vacation photos… Such an indulgence!

Lori Moran, Vlada Blinova and Rebecca Blakey made me feel so welcome. They graciously showed me around the University and Vlada gave me a personal tour of their clothing and textile collection. I kept my hands in my pockets the whole time… I wanted to reach out and touch the gorgeous chintzes and woven brocades, stroke the exquisite velvet shoes and the feathered hats. You know I know better, but it was almost irresistible.

I wasn’t aware that the evening of my presentation was also the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences College. That put a little more pressure on… I have to say I was a bit more nervous than usual when speaking! Lots of really smart people in the audience with a wealth of information. Lots of quilters too – and they had such thoughtful questions after I finished.

I also really enjoyed the impromptu exhibition of quilts made by the Edmonton Quilt Guild. They went to so much trouble to make the night special and I was overwhelmed to be a part of the celebration.

The Human Ecology department at the University of Alberta and the IQSCM have a lot in common. We both are devoted to the preservation and care of textiles and quilts, because we realize they have such rich stories to tell. We both take our mission seriously – to instill the same sense of delight we feel about marvelous textiles to future generations. Visit our websites, check out our exhibitions, read our publications – I promise you’ll be hooked too!

Additional Links:
International Quilt Study Center & Museum
University of Alberta Museums

A Fresh Look

If you have been to Quilt House during the past couple of months, then you already know that our main galleries have been closed for maintenance and repainting in advance of the grand opening of our new building expansion. The new expansion will double the size of our gallery and collections storage area and include a new digital gallery. We are excited about our museum's next phase, and we wanted to spruce up our existing space to make sure visitors have the best experience possible when they come this summer.

In December, our exhibitions team and volunteers removed the three exhibitions on display in our galleries. It left us with a lot of bare walls, which was a little sad, but also neat, because our galleries are truly beautiful.

During January, a painting crew painted the walls and ceiling. We decided to try a different shade of paint for our center gallery. In the past, we have typically displayed our quilts and pieces on white walls or fabric mounts. We wanted to see what our space would look like with some diversity.

And is it a big difference!

The center gallery currently features the exhibition Signature Cloths, guest-curated by Lynn Setterington, a UK artist who also created several of the pieces on display. This particular show features several white pieces, and they really pop against the darker walls.

Exhibitions team members and volunteers prepare to install Signature Cloths.

We are in the process of introducing new LED lights into our galleries. These LED lights are expected to last longer and produce less heat, which is important to us as we protect our collection and borrowed items while they are on display.

We also installed new lighting over the grand staircase, which can be seen from our front windows. These LEDs are also longer lasting and more energy efficient, which is important for our LEED-certified building.

And the building looks gorgeous.

Thank you to Sampson Construction for coordinating all of these efforts. We are so lucky to have such a great place to house and share our collection.

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart

By Jonathan Gregory
Assistant Curator of Exhibitions

I’ve been thinking how to describe what “Making & Mending: Quilts for Causes and Commemoration,” the International Quilt Study Center & Museum’s seventh biennial symposium, April 16-18, is really about.

There’s this Bee Gees’ 1971 hit, How Can You Mend a Broken Heart? It goes like this:

“How can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?” 

I wouldn’t want to stop the rain and sun both, but I guess the idea is that you can fix a broken heart about as easily as stopping either. Like, never. Pretty sad.

It’s true, some things will always stay broken. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t try to mend the ripped-up stuff in our world, or at least try to give some support to those who suffer from the consequences.

That’s kind of what “mending” in the symposium title is talking about.

Madison Township Memorial of the World War
Alice J. Hedderich, circa 1918
Madison Township, Clinton County, Indiana
IQSCM 2012.032.0002
Acquisition made possible by Robert & Ardis James Fund

Alice Hedderich did some local mending during World War I. She appliquéd blue stars to honor male soldiers from her township in Indiana who served in World War I, gold stars to remember the soldiers who fought and died, and red crosses, probably to represent Red Cross nurses who served. It’s impossible to bring back a soldier who died, but on her quilt that soldier still has a physical place in this world. A bit of bright gold to say this one lived and sacrificed himself, and that says to the soldiers’ family and community, “We Remember.”

Mending in the needle-and-thread sense isn’t something that we know as much about, these days. If I lose a button on a shirt, the shirt stays in the closet and eventually ends up pushed to the back and then goes to the Salvation Army. Have you heard of a darning egg? Well, I’ve seen one, and it is an egg-shaped hard object. If I had a hole in the sole of my sock, I could put the darning egg down inside the sock to give me something hard to push my needle against as I gathered up and closed the edges of the hole with thread. Brilliant really. Women used to keep them in their sewing baskets, but now I see them mostly in antique stores.

But sewing up holes in things is the right idea. Mending doesn’t undo the damage, but it can make the shirt or sole—or soul in the case of those who suffer—somewhat functional again. It restores a semblance of wholeness and normalcy.

Space is still available for symposium. Register today online.