Vermont and Maine

How do you like my new Blog header?  I thought it was time for a change.

While I said that seeing the Jane Stickle quilt was the highlight of my recent trip to New England, the rest of that area we traveled through was nothing to sneeze at and was just lovely this time of year. I debated posting so many photos and was only going to show them to family but then decided What the Heck -  How could I not share some of those pictures too? 

               

Bennington, VT

             

Although for the most part we were a little early for the true fall colors, some parts of Vermont were just gorgeous. You'd be driving along, everything was green and then BOOM! you'd go around a curve and the colors just exploded. I was trying to read but the scenery kept grabbing my attention until I said okay, okay, I get it and finally just put the book down. What I love about road trips.

Aside from The Quilt, there were some other wonderful exhibits at the Bennington Museum in Vermont, including a nice display of Grandma Moses paintings, which was my second favorite thing about the trip. 

                               

                               

The Checkered House

I've been a huge fan of Grandma Moses since the late 1970s  when I visited New England for the first time. While I was there I bought some lovely prints to hang in my very first apartment in Chicago after college. They still hang in our home today although I've changed the frames a few times. "Primitive" was not really popular among my circle of friends at that time and having a love for paintings created by a 90-year-old woman seemed odd to them and I got teased a bit but I didn't care - I loved the primitive style and those prints fit in well with my decorating scheme - simple, affordable, resale shop antiques and wall quilts (I was not a quilter yet). Something that has stuck with me, I'm afraid. 

                                 

Hoosick Falls  in Winter, my first and probably favorite GM print. I still love it after all these years.

The museum also had a very pretty miniature glass display -

How cute are those tiny glass irons?

We traveled to Maine from there. We'd been to Acadia National Park years ago but never really saw the southern coast or the city of Portland, which turned out to be fantastic. I'm hoping not to bore you too much with all the photos but there was so much BLUE everywhere we went I couldn't stop myself from snapping photo after photo of that beautiful ocean. I know some of you will appreciate the pictures and decide to take a trip there yourselves someday. 

Beautiful little seaside towns and picturesque fishing villages

Camden, Maine

One of my favorite poets is Edna St. Vincent Millay and as we drove through Camden I remembered that she wrote one of her first and most famous poems while living in Maine when she was nineteen. It was fun to actually stand in the spot she wrote about in 1912. 

"ALL I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked the other way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I’d started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood."                                              - from "Renascence"

Millay went on to receive the Pulitzer Prize in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry. She wrote some of the best sonnets you'll ever read.  

Did I tell you everything was BLUE??

The long drive back toward Sweet Home Chicago, where there is no ocean  : (

All Roads Lead to Bennington

There's nothing like a road trip in the fall. I've done my share but in the past 10 years they've mostly been for work. I have not been to the east coast for a vacation since 2005 and that trip included a pre-teen and a cranky teenager in the back seat. So, not really a vacation if you know what I mean. New England is a place that has always grabbed my heart and I wish I could spend more time there more often.

We were a little early for the truly explosive fall colors but still managed to see some along the way.

Since I began working on my (Dear) Jane Stickle quilt in 2010 I've tried a few times to make the quilter's pilgrimage to the Bennington Museum in Bennington, Vermont, to see the original but things never seemed to work out. The quilt is only on display there for a short time each year, during a month that happens to coincide with kids going back to school and which is typically a busy time at work for my husband. 

But, a few months ago, that dear man of mine asked me what I'd like for our 30th anniversary (!) which was coming up in September. (September also happens to be my birthday month.) Well, all I can say is he should be careful what he asks people. I smiled and told him what I really wanted was to go to Vermont. I don't need diamonds or rubies and was pleasantly surprised that he was so agreeable to the trip. Apparently. he'll go anywhere. We jumped through various hoops to make it happen and I got to see The Quilt up close and personal. Finally. Best birthday/anniversary gift ever.

I almost missed it, however. The museum has the quilt hidden in a small, dark room on the second floor and I actually walked right past it and then turned and said "Oh!" with a small gasp. There it was. Quietly unassuming and as dignified as a queen sitting on her throne.

We were lucky enough to get there on a quiet Sunday afternoon. The museum was relatively empty and so I had her all to myself and sat on the floor in that tiny room for about half an hour just staring, taking it all in and trying to get some photos. I have a very simple camera and since the room was dimly lit (to preserve the textiles) this is the best I could do with such little light. No flash photography allowed.

What you notice first is the excellent condition it's in and how vibrant the colors of the fabrics appear. Jane's brother was listed as a tailor in the census records and there is some speculation that that is how she acquired the variety of prints she used to make the quilt.

If the quilt looks odd with the blocks in the wrong order, it's because it is displayed differently at the museum than in the book. Here, the basket is right side up with Jane's signature on the bottom left instead of the right side. Apparently, they also rotate the quilt every year. 

One thing that always struck me was that the blocks look a bit quirky in the book - not perfect and sometimes crooked - and you can never really see the entire quilt well in a photograph. When we work on the quilt we are focusing on one block at a time and I know I tend to get caught up in trying to make each one as perfectly as I can. But, when you actually see Jane's blocks up close, they are glorious. Like a dear old friend, you stand back and look past the wrinkles and flaws and see the true beauty of the whole person. The quirkiness does not stand out at all and what you see is the amazing way they were all pieced and put together into this wonderful design and how the colors flow throughout the quilt. This Jane, she knew about color. It gave me hope that mine will look amazing when I finish it even though I feel some of my blocks may leave something to be desired. 

I swear I got shivers when I saw Jane's signature and her embroidered inscription: In War Time. 1863. I've already decided what my inscription will be.

I can't say I've ever been this moved by a quilt, and I've seen a few pretty nice ones. After viewing it, I was so touched I became even more driven to make mine as close to Jane's as possible, as a tribute perhaps. I understand completely now how it just pulls you in and has become such a phenomenon among quilters all over the world. Something in me wants to honor Jane's work and the work of quilters throughout the ages - does that make sense? We owe many thanks to Brenda Papadakis for bringing Jane's quilt to us so that so many of  us can recreate it.  And I hope to one day have my own little piece of recreated history as a legacy to leave to my family. It may give a clue to someone in years to come why I quilted.

I read an account that said Jane was an invalid and that her quilt was awarded a prize for best pieced quilt at the Bennington County Fair, a prize that earned her $2.00.

You're really able to clearly see Jane's Trip Around the World motif  with colors radiating outward from the center.

The little town of Bennington. View from museum across the street.

You can read more about the quilt and Jane's history here and will also find some interesting facts here on Jenni's blog. 

Fabric Scraps

They're doing wonderful things with fabric scraps these days. Not me, but some people. I can't seem to get a handle on my scraps so I sure could use some ideas.

My scrap basket is actually made from scraps . . . . It's probably trying to tell me something. I often think of throwing them all out but can't do it. Maybe I need to find more ways to use them up.

For instance, I love this necklace from Anthropologie -

                                                         

Wonder if this would work with my Civil War repro scraps??  I guess you would just need to connect long strips, tie a few knots and voila! Fabric scraps necklace/scarf. 

                                                                

Here are some colorful braided strips strung together and accented with a fabric flower. 

I'm guessing it would never look this good on me, however. I'd probably just look like someone dumped my basket of scraps on my head in a fabric bucket challenge . . . .

                        

               Yoyo  necklace anyone?

                                                 
                                        

                                                        


                                          

Apparently, this one is a baby teething necklace for mommy to wear. Glad I'm out of that phase . . . . Girl, make sure that doesn't bleed onto your white shirt when it gets wet. 

                                         

             This one is even kind of cute. 

Let me know if you've ever tried doing something like this with fabric strips and if it worked -  then maybe I'll try it too.