Saturday, October 24, 2009

Wow! Saw Jane's Quilt in Person

After seeing Jane's quilt "In War Time" at the Bennington Museum on October 4th, the thing that surprised me the most was that the quilt has NO sashing, but many blocks have border strips around them, and when the quilt is viewed from a distance, it APPEARS to have sashing.

Photo taken at Bennington Museum (VT) in October 2009
Jane A. Stickle's quilt, "In War Time"

To see more photos that I took at the Bennington Museum in Vermont of Jane's quilt, go to my Flickr albums.
My 2009 Photos on Flickr
My 2010 Photos on Flickr

The quilt was displayed rotated 90 degrees to the right. When viewed this way Rebecca's Basket (J-12) is upright, Papa's Star (G-6) doesn't look upside down to me any more, and the hearts in the triangle blocks (RS-7 Fedelia's Hearts & RS-8 Love Forever) are also upright. Going by the differences I just noted, I prefer the way it looks displayed like this, it just looks "right" to me.

Since the various sized strips around some of the blocks makes some blocks appear larger and some smaller, it seems to tie in with the "variety" theme of the quilt. Since they're all different patterns, done in different fabrics, why not different sizes.

I've loved the random look of Jane's quilt so much that I've decided to re-draft the patterns in EQ5 to more closely resemble the original, while keeping the rainbow color scheme. So far I have 2 rows re-drafted. The re-draft is being done in colors that are similar to the ones in the original quilt. I'll have to import my blocks into the DJ software and re-color them for my rainbow design.

The changes are very suble, and only a slightly insane person such as myself might bother with it, but I really like the slightly more "hodge-podge" appearance without the evenness of the sashing.

So here's to starting over!

2 comments:

Susan In Texas said...

I see what you mean and I agree with you. The randomness of the mother quilt is responsible for at least some of its enduring charm. The current reproductions, no matter how authentic the fabric, seem very modern in comparison. The rows are aligned so perfectly that it gains a geometric element that the mother quilt lacks. I hadn't even realized that the mother quilt wasn't actually sashed. This is all very interesting!

Thanks,
Susan

Anonymous said...

I admire your patience but hey, that's one of the requirements for this quilt.
I agree with your design and wonder if you will publish your own interpretation?
Looking forward to progress pics :)