AHEAD OF THE CURVE
In fashion and then out of fashion and now back in again: the American Quilt. It was no surprise to us that the quilts made by our grandparents, great-grandparents and beyond would come back into the world of appreciation and veneration.
As recently as this past fashion season the quilt has become the fabric of desire in of all places the men's fashion runways. Even the New York Times came on board with an article, "Men's Wear Is on a Quilt Trip". With an eye toward recycling and repurposing jackets and vests made from vintage quilts and quilt tops were paraded down runways and then sold in high-end Soho stores for very high-end prices.
As has been evident in many of our, well almost all of our, posts we're incurable collectors. For me it started back in college when my pockets had holes in them. My mom was the one who indoctrinated me into the art of garage sales. She'd start out her week going through the newspaper aligning an itinerary for the weekend tour of the best garage sales. She put into order hunting lists by proximity to each other and whether they included the words antiques and or vintage in their advertisement. We quickly grew the list of antique and vintage hunting by adding auctions to our list of activities. The only criteria was to limit our finds to what we could fit in the car. I was able to furnish every undergraduate apartment I ever had with the bounty we scarfed up on these weekend jaunts.
Vintage and antique quilts became an early obsession on our scavenger hunts. When Rick got added to the mix the obsession grew exponentially. Antiquing, snooping around flea markets and sniffing out bargains at shops specializing in brocante has become our paramount leisure time pursuit and quilts became a major covet. Once we were into it we did have to do some self-educating along the quilting trail.
The first thing we began to look at when we spied a new quilt hung on a hanger or folded up on a shelf was the stitching. We looked to see if the quilt was stitched by hand or put together using a sewing machine. The stitching is the quilt maker's signature. It's a little disappointing when you see the uninspiring uniformity of a machine's work.
A quilter's handy work can be as simple as the binding stitches that hold the fabric together or as intricate as the embroidery work found on a crazy quilt. Needlework in the form of herringbone, chevron and blanket stitches are the masterwork of nimble hands.
There are steps before piecing a quilt together that require creative decision-making. They require gathering material and then deciding on a design.
Quilts new and old rely on collecting enough fabric to construct a quilt from a lap-sized version to one large enough to cover a bed. The choice of fabric is going to dictate the color palette and hand of the quilt.
Most of the fabrics on traditional quilts were the scraps left over from the making of a home-made dress or shirt or an empty feed sack.
Probably the most famous quilts made from scrapes of old work clothes are the quilts of Gees Bend, a small remote Black community in Alabama. These quilts have been featured in books and in major museum exhibitions. The designs are freeform geometric focusing on complimentary rich colors.
Most quilts in our collection are traditional patterns dating back to the eighteen hundreds, patterns like the Wedding Ring, Lone Star and Log Cabin.
Other designs can be botanical or use representational images from the animal kingdom or a history of the maker's life.
Most early quilts were done with a dual purpose. The first was necessity. They provided warmth and comfort but secondarily they were art. The making was frequently done as a group. Before we had TVs and the internet people frequently socialized over a quilting frame gossiping and stitching away.
Some of the most beautiful quilts are the crazy quilts stitching stories with their pictorial choice of fabrics and their embroidered imagery and edging. Once again, our daughter has followed in our footsteps collecting an impressive collection of these amazing quilts.
Whether you use a quilt for a winter or summer bed cover,
find one so beautiful you decide to hang it on the wall
or lovingly use pieces of a damaged one to reupholster a chair the quilt is definitely back in fashion. For those with a good eye and stamina to enter the hunt there are still many out there to be picked up for prices well below their worth.
We recently found these amazing pieces at a resale shop for $25 a piece. So way below their worth if only in the hours spent to create them. Please go out and save these pieces of our artistic heritage. When you find one you've saved a piece of some artist's sole.
THE GALLERY
Grandmother from Oklahoma and Her Pieced Quilt, 1936 Dorothea Lange, photographer, Represented by Edwynn Houk Gallery
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