The Rickrack Rag

We only have one painting on our walls that has anything to do with quilts and quilting - but this one has everything to do with quilting. It’s a tongue-in-cheek look at a quilting bee of African American women, signed Sallielou P Eakins. The image speaks for itself.

This was purchased years ago at our local antique market from the artist herself; or rather himself. At the time he was a young man living in Reading, PA. Sallielou was his alter ego and as far as I know he still paints under that name, having dropped the surname some time ago. Apparently he now lives in Cottonwood, NM. Here’s a gallery of some of his more recent work.

Several times we’ve seen Sallielou’s work turn up in auctions on eBay and in various outsider art and folk art circles.

Years ago I lived in an old stone farmhouse with two chimneys, but no fireplace. In the living room was a woodstove which we used to supplement the oil heat and to save on fuel. A stovepipe extended through the ceiling into the bedroom above, thence into a round hole in the wall that accessed the flue. That way the bedroom got to share some of the extra heat from the woodstove.

A second bedroom also had a similar hole in the wall for a stovepipe, but we had only one wood stove, so didn’t need the second chimney. This was not an uncommon situation in Victorian America, apparently; therefore you occasionally find decorative old flue covers such as this one. Round, to cover a stovepipe sized hole, and decorated with any number of different lovely ladies, or other pictures.

I didn’t always realize that I needed a flue cover. At the time, the bedroom with the hole in the wall was an extra room that I used only for books and storage. In the winter I kept the door closed, and there was minimal heat loss. One night, however, something else made the need for a flue cover evident.

A friend was visiting, and coming down from using the upstairs facility, he said, “There’s something in the book room.”
“What is it?” I asked, naively.

“I don’t know, but it makes a sound like shhhwoop, sshhhhwooop.”

Of course this bore investigation, so I went upstairs and listened at the door. Not a sound. So I opened the door slightly, enough to switch on the light. I expected to be dive-bombed by a bat or something, but I was hardly prepared for what I did see: A beautiful, pale gray, full-grown barn owl. I suspected he was hardly likely to fly back up the chimney through the small hole in the flue.

Anxious lest the owl be harmed, or that he might find some of my library rather tasty, I concocted a plan to let him out by opening the window fully. Knowing I’d have to cross the bedroom to do it, I put on a heavy jacket, gloves and a hat, in case the owl should feel threatened. He didn’t seem to mind, though, as I went to the window and began to open it. He simply watched, timidly, curiously.

I opened the window as wide as possible, then circled to approach him from the opposite side of the room. He was no dummy. He found the open window right away, and with one flap of his big wings, flew out and glided all the way across the yard to the barn.

The next day, and thereafter, I made sure that a flue cover was always in place in the book room. Today our flue covers hang on the wall, with no hole behind them, serving only a decorative function.

Back when we first started selling lots of feedsacks to Japan, one of our best Japanese customers was so pleased that she used to send us gifts. She sent a magazine with an article about her shop (in Japanese), a Japanese quilt show catalog, a Japanese-English business dictionary, even a kimono from her grandmother. But our favorite gift was one she made for us herself, that we named Raggedy Angel.

With her hair made from frayed twine, a straw bow at her neck, white quilted wings and patchwork vintage fabric dress we think she’s just the cutest thing. And look at that angelic exprssion!

Last year we went to a meeting of the Mid Atlantic Quilt Study Group for which the theme was “Wild by Design”, after a quilt show which we visited as a group. For study, members brought quilt items that they felt fit the description. This is one of a pair of orphan blocks we bought years ago, about as wild as they come. We’ve never seen any others remotely like these.

It took a huge number of applique stitches to do all those serrated edges - whoever designed these was devoted to the task. Or maybe not, since we found only two.

I’m still trying to imagine what the whole quilt might have looked like.

We’re starting a new feature (at least for a little while) on our blog called Feedsack Friday. Feedsack Tuesday just didn’t sound right. We’ve done a general article on feedsacks, but there are so many variations that we could be doing this for years.

Today’s special topic is polka dots! An exuberant pattern, simple yet somehow exciting, and so many possibilities. Sometimes they’re dense, sometimes scattered, sometimes large, sometimes small. Some are white on a colored background, others are colored dots on white. Here are a few samples:

As you can see, there are variations in color, scale and arrangement. Our Japanese customers are especially fond of polka dot patterns; the Japanese word for polka dot translates as “drop of water”. Some more variations:

Using simple circles of color for so many different effects. Of course there are hundreds of polka dot feedsack patterns, hundreds more that combine dots with other elements - but that’s a topic for another Friday. A few more dot patterns to emphasize the point:

We hope you’ve enjoyed the first of our feedsack Fridays, more to come!

Here’s a little guy to wish you all the best this new year!

I’m hoping to post a picture every day this month - some silly, some pretty, some curious - of things we have around our house/warehouse. This guy’s the first one!

2008 was an exceptional year, by anyone’s reckoning. As it ends, we are just beginning to feel the effects of the two most historical happenings of the year: the election of Barack Obama, the first African-American elected to the office of President of the US; and the economic crisis of perhaps unparalleled proportions, resulting from lax oversight, greed and poor judgment among other factors. And, wonder of wonders, the Phillies won the World Series. (We know because there was absolutely nothing else on the local news for days on end.

I think, considering how it’s ending, most of us will be glad to say goodbye to 2008. To be sure, many of us will have fond memories from events of this year, but most of us will also remember the fears; watching our investments dwindle, credit dry up, and jobs disappear. Gasoline got more expensive than ever, we paid a fortune for one delivery of heating oil early this fall, and now Americans gladdened by the retreat of oil prices are again at risk of forgetting the need to rethink our use of that limited commodity. The changing of the year (which will no doubt cause me to cross out a few 8’s and replace them with 9’s) will not revive the economy, but it will usher in the new president’s term, and upon him rests the heavy load of the economy, wars and terrorism, energy policy and all the rest. I sincerely wish him the best, it’s the world’s toughest job. May God help him and all of us!

For us, 2008 was not too bad. We both stayed out of the hospital, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of our business, and we started a blog!! We turned up some interesting things in 2008, many of which we’ve shared on this blog. Discovery and learning, we find, are the things that give us the most pleasure - for that reason we also love to pass them along so that others may share in it. We’re looking forward to continued fun with our friends in both business and personal life, and our many friends whom we’ve never met, but know only by their online personalities and kind words.

Thanks to our readers for visiting our blog - here’s to more and better in ‘09!!

Over the years we’ve seen a lot of double prints - double “cinnamon” pink, double “Lancaster” blue, and more rarely double cheddar. These favorites in the Pennsylvania German quilter’s palette span a time from the mid 19th century into the 1920’s, and are characterized by a printed pattern in a deeper shade on a background of a lighter shade of the same color, giving them a brilliance and clarity that could not be achieved with one shade alone.

Quilts using Lancaster blue seem to all have Pennsylvania origins, though perhaps some are found from closely neighboring areas. There are so few of the double cheddars found that it’s difficult to make any general observations. But the double pinks abound! For years, the conventional wisdom in our area was that quilts with double pink (a large number, to be sure!) were unsaleable - known as “The curse of Hattie Brunner” after a well-known Lancaster County dealer and folk-artist.

Since Hattie’s passing in 1982, aesthetic sensibilities with regard to quilts have changed somewhat, and double pink is better appreciated for its role in the design of so many Pennsylvania quilts. And certainly, in the late 19th century, double pink must have been very popular in the area. In fact, in the 22 19th century quilts currently being offered in our quilt department, half have at least some double pink, and most of those feature it prominently. Double pink’s popularity may also be attested to by the sheer variety of different prints that were available. In my archives, I find that we’ve offered no fewer than a dozen different ones on our antique fabric page.

Just a few examples of double pink are shown above; we’ve found many other different ones. In contrast, Lancaster blue and double cheddar seem to occur in very few variations. The photo below from one of our quilts shows blue and cheddar in a similar pattern (as well as 2 different double pinks).

If you browse the quilt gallery along the right sidebar of this blog, you’ll see many examples of the pink in quilts, most with different prints. There are 6 examples of quilts with Lancaster blue, and almost all are variations on one of two patterns - the one I call double-dot as shown in the picture above and this one:

The second pattern that accounts for much of the Lancaster blue is one I call bellflower, as seen here:

I’ve seen perhaps 5 or six other double blue prints, though the two above and their variations seem to account for the grest majority. Similarly, the even scarcer double cheddar occurs in double dot prints as shown above, and perhaps a handful of others. I know of no reason why the variety of blue or cheddar prints should not be as great as those of the double pink, but in our experience there is a vastly greater number of patterns of pink than of either of the other two. If anyone else knows why, I hope they’ll let me know.

“A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices!”

Peace be with you!

This sweet little cradle quilt from my website was a gift to “Dolores”, December 25, 1934 from “Nanna Smith”.

Nanna Smith is undoubtedly gone now, for all we know so is Dolores, but this quilt is a little something to keep the warmth between them alive in the world, these 74 years later.

You can see more detailed pictures of the quilt here: Sunbonnet Sue Cradle Quilt

I wish everyone would have inscribed their quilts; I’d love to know more of the quilters and their personalities. They’ve left a beautiful legacy.

If you’re a quilter, remember how important it will be to those you leave behind to inscribe the quilts you make with love.