A weft yarn: Ode to Susan McCord: Dolly quilt block started

October 09, 2015

Ode to Susan McCord: Dolly quilt block started

Date: March 2013

With four blocks done, it is time to start one of the two blocks that has some hand sewing on it. This Material Obsession dolly quilt is a tribute to Susan McCord's Trailing Vines quilt. This was all new to me, so I was really keen to dive in and read the project notes.

Looking back at the women who have shaped our quilting destiny is a favourite activity for many. One amazing woman was Susan McCord (1829-1909). She was "an ordinary housewife with extraordinary quilting genius", Her quilts are featured in Quilts of the Henry Ford, which is a lovely book full of examples of stunning traditional style quilts.

The McCord Vine Quilt is my all time favourite quilt and is made of nearly 4,000 strip pieced leaves appliqued in 13 vine panels...by candle light and with five children... I have always wanted to make her quilt but a dolly version might have to suffice for now. So here is an achievable McCord Vine Quilt, minus about 3,970 leaves.

Wow. Love it, and off we go.....

It is a fantastic technique for using up scraps of fabric and as we know, you can become attached to favourite bits of fabric that hold special meaning. And you could just want to be resourceful and make sure you waste not. As this is a sampler project, I could see myself using this technique in future but for now the kit came with quite a collection of small bits of fabric off cuts. These we were instructed to cut into uniform widths, something that Susan did not do on her quilt, and then sew them together into four strips per mini block.

When I thought about the historical references for this quilt I was a bit curious that it had a reference to Henry Ford. Images of Model T Fords did not seem particularly resonant with quilting. And certainly, before I started this little project, I didn't know much about the Henry Ford Museum, but if you go to their blog you'll find this explanation.

Pretty cool stuff.

I then did a search on their blog for quilts and found an interesting article for quilt researchers. Not sure I'm as interested in diving into this form of textile research, as I'm spending so much of my time on 17C embroidery, but just in case, and for a future date, I'll add this mental note in here > the quilt index may be worth a look. On first glance, its a pretty serious tool for research, with detailed search fields intended for academics. But then if you roam around and look at the themed galleries Contemporary Massachusetts Quilts, Quilts and Mathematics in Education, Christmas quilts....its the usual rich diversity. A lifetime could be spent here. In the meantime, iron your little 4 strip patches.

Then make a little plastic template of a leaf, buy a silver gel pen, and trace the pattern onto your 4 strip patches.

Then do not absorb the information that tells you to leave a seam allowance. Cut out your leaves on the gel pen line and when trying to applique them, notice they are too small. Start again. This time, leave a seam allowance. Keep all the discard leaves in your note book to remind you (besides they are pretty). Again, I had plenty of fabric in the original kit to do this, and even though I do not quilt a lot, I already have a great scrap collection. So, then you sew the rick rack on and in the photo below I have placed the leaves, but not yet sewn them down. It isn't the final placement, rather just a see....this is what it will look like.

Before I show you my finished product, and just in case you are interested in seeing other wonderful tributes, back in 2011, there was a quilt-a-long for a version of Susan McCord's Trailing Vines quilt. There are some interesting links in the post, if this is your thing. Here is another lovely tribute to the Vine quilt of Susan McCord's and finally, Barbara Brackman has an interesting article about Susan McCord on her blog. The article discusses a new quilt of Susan's that had just been discovered, as well as some interesting variations on Susan's technique.

As Barbara says " She seems to have invented the string-pieced applique vine....... Nobody else used it---until of course we all made our own."

Glad my cat likes it.