Last Day in Williamsburg: DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum

A lovely silver gilt urn was one of the first things I spotted

After 2+ days looking at remarkable quilts, I decided to poke around the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum and look at some of the other displays. There were so many amazing objects to be seen. My head was spinning, and I must go back some time to see more. Here are some pictures of what I saw.

One of these Moravian flasks appeared on Antiques Roadshow years ago

Leeds Pottery Horse Figure, c. 1825, England

View of the regional furniture display

Another view of the regional furniture display

Charming school chair/desk. Looks more comfortable that the ones I used.

A handsome couple, but I'm afraid I didn't get their names...

Charles Wilson Peale's iconic portrait of George Washington

Early 1800s quilted handkerchief panel

Detail: panels were usually cut after printing, but this one remained whole

Embroidered work bag, c. 1675, England 

Beautiful quilted bonnet in pristine condition

What a spectacular collection they have! Every time I go to a museum of this caliber, I look closely at the methods of displaying objects. The quilt display was especially interesting to me. They were all displayed in cases, upright, and most were on panels set at a slight angle. This method of display takes a lot of the stress off the object, and I've seen it done before, but never throughout a whole exhibit.

Can't wait to go back. It's hard to believe it was only my first time visiting Colonial Williamsburg. I lived on the East Coast for more than 30 years, but somehow didn't get to places like Williamsburg and Winterthur. Had I known how great these places were, and how relevant they would be to me as a collector, I'd have gone frequently. If you haven't visited Colonial Williamsburg and the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, put it on your bucket list.

Achsah Goodwin Wilkins Chintz Medallion Pictures

detail: Achsah Goodwin Wilkins chintz medallion at Williamsburg

Great day full of incredible lectures at The DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum in Colonial Williamsburg, where the "Influences on American Quilts: Baltimore to Bengal" conference is taking place this week. Topics ranged from an incredible medieval Italian quilt to the one I came to see, Ronda McAllen presenting "The Chintz Gardens of Achsah Goodwin Wilkins."

Ronda did an incredible job, and at the end of the lecture I heard someone calling out from the audience asking her to please publish her research. It was that good, and so was everyone else. But since I have a special interest in the Achsah Goodwin Wilkins chintz medallions, I thought I'd share some pictures of the one on display in Williamsburg, and how it compares with mine. Yesterday, I posted a picture of the two, side-by-side. In case you missed that, here it is. Mine is the one on the right.

Immediately apparent is the difference in condition and the overall design. The one in Williamsburg is in excellent condition, with only a couple minor stains. The chintz still shines with glaze, and the colors seem much closer to being intact than mine. Although the condition of mine is not as good, its design seems to have more of a formal structure than the one in Williamsburg. The placement of swags makes the overall design into flower shape. The ground cloth is the same type of fabric with a different pattern.

Before lunch, I met with Ronda McAllen, Linda Baumgarten, Kimberly Smith Ivey, and Kay Triplett - we snuck into a back storage room to take a peek at my medallion - and we talked about the ground cloth and what it could be. Possibly a later generation of Marseilles cloth, which may have been thinner, without two layers woven together. The conversation veered away from dimity and damask, so maybe we're back to calling it Marseilles cloth.

(l-r) Linda, Kim, and Ronda viewing my chintz medallion

One of the specific characteristics Ronda has seen in all the examples of Achsah Goodwin Wilkins chintz medallions that she has viewed is the pieced iris. I've blogged about it before, and here it is in Williamsburg's medallion. In this picture, the seam runs almost horizontally, and you can see it more easily because the light is picking up the shine of the glaze at the seam. It's a lot harder to see with no glaze.

In case you didn't see the other blog about the iris, here's a picture of the four I discovered in my medallion.

The theory about the pieced iris is it must have somehow been printed at the edge of the fabric in two places, which is not out of the ordinary for a continuous printed design. The other thing that's obviously a match on first glance is the border fabric. There are other bits of chintz that match, too.

I do hope Ronda publishes her research and keeps going with it. She was nice to include a picture of my quilt in her presentation, and when she mentioned that another example had just surfaced and was purchased at auction, all I could do was smile. 

Quilts in the Baltimore Manner

What good fortune that I could go see the "Quilts in the Baltimore Manner" exhibit at Colonial Williamsburg, a little over a month after I acquired the Achsah Goodwin Wilkins Chintz Medallion. Ronda McAllen is speaking at the "Influences in American Quilts: Baltimore to Bengal" conference, and "The Chintz Gardens of Achsah Goodwin Wilkins" is her topic. I expected to see the medallion from the Williamsburg collection in the exhibit. What took me by surprise was how prominently it was displayed.

Compare: the chintz medallion at Williamsburg (left) and mine (right). 

It was at the end of a long gallery full of quilts, facing the entry, and it was basically the crown jewel in an exhibit full of rare, precious gems. It took my breath away. I hadn't really considered where it would be, or what that would say about it. The placement was important. It made me think to myself, "Wow, I guess I really did find something good."

People in the gallery asked me how mine differed from the one in the exhibit, and I tried showing a picture on my iPhone, but the side-by-side (above) really tells the story. More about the chintz medallions later. Here are some pictures of the exhibit.

It was a treat to hang around in the gallery chatting with other visitors and looking at the quilts. Julie Silber was there, and I very much enjoyed the chance we had to visit. We hadn't spent enough time visiting with each other at Quilt Adventure in Bellingham and the AQSG Seminar in Lincoln, so I was especially happy to sit down, relax, and catch up. Once people began to arrive, there were a lot of familiar faces, and it was great to see everyone. I'm looking forward to two days of fascinating presentations by some of the most knowledgeable people in the world of quilt and textile history. 

A Trend I Like

I've been self-publishing books for 8 or 9 years, since I first discovered my iPhoto program had a function for making books. There was a segment on the Today show, about holiday gifts, and one of the suggestions was print-on-demand, self-published books. It was a new idea for a highly personalized, yet professional looking gift.

I tried it, loved it, and have made books as gifts for several years. The first quilt book I self-published and released to the general public was the "Small Wonders" catalog of doll quilts by Andrea Balosky in 2011. I did all the design and photography, published it through Blurb, and it was an 8 x 8" soft cover, 120-page full-color book.

The next quilt book I published was also done in 2011- the "Beauty Secrets" catalog for my exhibit at the Benton County Museum in Philomath, Oregon. The 80-page full-color catalog was also published through Blurb, and was 8 x 10" softcover.

I've been happy with Blurb, although it's a very different approach to publishing. Each new exhibit I've done has been accompanied by a catalog, and That's something I love about self-publishing. And now, I'm not alone anymore. Recently, Roderick Kiracofe and Barbara Brackman published books through Blurb. Kyra Hicks published a book about how to self-publish, and she's also got a blog about it. All three of these authors have previously gone the more traditional route and worked with publishing houses.

two-page spread from "Quilts" by Roderick Kiracofe

spread from "A Book of the Saints for Quilters" by Barbara Brackman

spread from "Lately Arrived from London" by Barbara Brackman

If you're considering publishing your own book, whether as a gift or for public release, a good place to start would be Kyra Hicks' book, "How to Self-Publish Your Own Quilt Catalog", which is available through Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions. She's also doing a blog, called "Publish Your Quilts".

Pairing a book on self-publishing with a blog is pure genius, in my opinion. Self-publishing a book is a natural extension of blogging. Are we moving in the direction of self-publishing?  Possibly. Seeing the growing popularity and how many noted authors are trying it, I can't imagine it's only a trend. But if it is, it's a trend I like.

Another Experiment

I'm working on another experiment, and this time it's a small pieced quilt with two fabrics, curved seams, a pillow-edge finish, and machine quilting. When I was almost done quilting the dark lines, which are actually navy blue, I ran out of thread. LOL!

It was late, and I wanted to continue working on the quilt, so I tried laying down some color with a band of fluorescent orange quilting. The lines of orange quilting are closer together than the lines of navy, and I like how it stiffens and flattens the quilt while adding subtle color. So, I've decided to keep going with it, and will vary thread color slightly as I go.

The black shape is quilted in the opposite direction, which you can see on the back. I'm planning to leave it that way and fill the surrounding blue areas with more dense quilting in fluorescent thread. This quilt will be part of my "Small Wonders" series- if I don't screw it up! I have a name in mind, but will share that later. 

Play with Scraps

I was curious about how to do a pillow edge finish on a quilt, so I decided to play with scraps yesterday. Binding is one of the things that I'm not good at, so a pillow edge seemed like a possible solution. It worked pretty well. I don't mind the wavy edge so much, but the spot on the lower left edge - where you can see the light blue back fabric - needs a little fixing. Hopefully I'll get better at it. I can make more quilts if I could bind them with less effort.

Next time, I may not choose black thread for the quilting. Now I know why quilters often try to match the quilting thread to the color of the fabric. If you make a mistake, it doesn't show as much. But of course, all my mistakes show. I'm not saying that's a bad thing necessarily. It gives me a good idea of what I could work on. And that's what I get for being lazy about changing thread. It would probably also help if I got a free motion foot thingy.

No name for this piece yet, but I'm thinking of naming it after a person, similar to what Andrea Balosky did in her Small Wonders quilts. That's IF I can whip it into shape. Maybe it's a Libby. That's my sister. We see each other once a year, at Christmas, and try not to fight. Maybe it reminds me of her because I tried not to fight with this quilt. I probably would've done more, but the bobbin thread ran out, and I need to psyche myself up to get it loaded. But it's fun to play with scraps.

Wonky Star Top

Here's the latest progress on the Wonky Star top I started in Gwen Marston's workshop in Sisters. It's pieced, and since I like it, I'm stopping here. It'll be a small quilt.

I'd thought of hand quilting it, but when I like a top I've made, I worry about screwing it up. So, I'm going to get it machine quilted, maybe with swirlies. Something curvy would play nicely with the hard lines in the pieced design. It's a little bumpy in places, so hopefully some nice, dense machine quilting will "quilt it down".

So what do you think? Is it art? Or am I just a silly man playing with a sewing machine?