What do you think of my silly title?
This issue, I’m announcing a new YouTube video - I make videos pretty seldom, so this is reason to celebrate. I do keep hoping to make videos more often.
For this video, two quilt friends and I did some sleuthing about a mysterious batting that they each found in a Victorian crazy quilt in their collections. None of us had ever seen a batting that looked and felt so incredibly smooth and silky. So we were thinking it could be silk. So we thought we’d try a burn test to explore that hypothesis. I’m not sure, but there may not be much info on batting in crazies, because they more often don’t have batting at all. We live in three different states, Midwest, the Northeast, and South Central, so we met on zoom.
Here’s the link to the video: Burn Test Demonstration
The first section is a general intro to how burn testing works. The second section shows the testing of the mystery batting
Those of you who have crazies in your collection, please let me know if you have any experience with battings in crazy quilts!
Also, if any you have ideas about where we can go for further research, please chime in. Write to museums with large collections? Write to the big name historians like Barbara Brackman, Merikay Waldvogel, Alden O’Brien, etc.? Post on quilt history facebook pages?
In other news, I’m finishing up a large art quilt, a small wedding wall hanging, and mending an embroidered pillow for a friend who just turned 102. Once complete, these will be posted. I’ve been revising an old lecture called “Quilts as Historic Documents”, just in case someone requests it. I have lots more to say than I did years ago, so right now, I have a whopping 145 slides….waaaay to many for an hour lecture! But I can’t stop myself from adding just one more and just one more. There are just so many topics and so many cool quilts…..
Upcoming:
Arizona Quilt Study Group’s spring lectures, always a treat:
https://azquiltstudygroup.org/regional-study
The True Story of the Rajah Quilt by Sarah Ashford
Antique British Frame Quilts by Carolyn Gibbs
May 30 - 10 a.m. Phoenix, AZ Time (be sure to check a time zone converter)
————— Announcements —————
• Arizona Quilt Study Group’s spring lectures:
The True Story of the Rajah Quilt by Sarah Ashford
Antique British Frame Quilts by Carolyn Gibbs
May 30 - 10 a.m. Phoenix, AZ Time (be sure to check a time zone converter)
• New video - Burn Test Demonstration
Identifying a mystery batting in two Victorian crazy quilts.
• Preserving Our Quilt Legacy Virtual Workshop - registration is open
• Something From Nothing - A series of small quilts made from decorator fabric samples
• Quiltations - monthly fun from my friend and quilt appraiser Charleen Richtsmeier - A potpourri of quilt news and events, recipes, jokes, quilt and fabric history, words to the wise, etc., etc.
Write Charleen to subscribe
————— The Fine Print —————
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• Create Whimsy - an interview with me