Playing with Pansies

I do love to 'play' in the sewing room. I used another linen from my great bargain bash, added embroidered pansies cut from something, and culled out some pansy handkerchiefs to make this wall quilt hanging.

The pansy embroidery was centered in a lace edged doily which was centered on a handkerchief with an embroidered pansy.

 Everything is applied to a fat quarter of a yellow floral print.

 I cut the handkerchief corners and layered them from the quilt edge with points towards the center.

 I like to use sheer cotton or nylon handkerchiefs in this manner. I like how the underlying fabric shows through for added texture and interest.

I have a lot pulled out for future play!

French Beaded Flowers

My *new* hometown library has a case with monthly displays. This month is featuredthe ancient craft of  French Beaded Flowers . These were created in the 1970s by Shirley Kopkowski who sold them at craft shows.

Shirley told us that one lady saw her flowers, blanched, and turned and walked away. Later she returned and told her that in her country these flowers were used for memorials at grave sites. She had a sudden rush of memories upon seeing them.

Learn more at http://www.rosemarykurtz.com/  or https://blog.etsy.com/en/2013/history-lesson-french-beaded-flowers/ or http://www.deesbeadedflowers.com/index.html

Shirley is in the weekly quilt group I have been attending. This lovely quilt was also in the library.

 

This embroidered and quilted hanging was made by Thayne Neff of Clawson

Reverse Applique Jane

Here is how I did the Jane Austen silhouette in reverse applique.

I printed Jane's silhouette in different sizes and decided what size I wanted to use. Then I cut her out, right at the edge of her silhouette. (I loved paper dolls when I was a girl, so I had lots of practice.)

I cut the light and the red stripe fabric the same size and layered them with the light on top. I basted the layers together along the outer edges. (You could pin them. You could also iron the fabric. I didn't have my pins, or iron, at the time I did this.)

Silhouette placement on layered fabrics

I placed Jane on my white fabric and using a pencil traced around the edges of the silhouette. This line became my edge for the applique. I then basted around the silhouette, leaving a seam allowance between the basting line and the outline.

Using a sharp pair of small scissors I cut into the fabric inside the outline. I cut it little at a time, about 1/4 inch from the line. I cut small cuts into the seam allowance, down to the line, to help the fabric fold under better. (Like I learned when sewing curved seams when making clothing.)

I hand stitched the light fabric to the red stripe, folding the seam allowance inside just like in needle-turn applique. I actually used a red thread to match the silhouette fabric. I used the same stitch as in applique.

After the applique was completed I took out all the basting threads. I flipped the block over and using small sharp scissors trimmed the red stripe fabric, leaving a 1/4" seam allowance. Then I pressed the block.

Jane's signature

I added Jane's name by finding her signature and enlarging it, tracing it onto the light fabric. I embroidering it using three strands of dark brown embroidery floss.

It was really easy!

The Negro Problem

I am preparing my quilt for shipping to be shown at the Grand Rapids, MI American Quilt Society show. And I took the time to read again the quotations I embroidered. And I feel the quilt is timely.

The women on the quilt, black and white, all worked for freedom and equality. Their words still move me as I read them again.

"Remember we are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit, a larger freedom that encompasses all mankind." Ella Baker 1903-1986

"The chasm between what the principles upon which this government was founded ... and those which are daily practiced...yawn wide and deep." Mary Church Terrell 1863-1954

"Problems lie not so much in our action as in our inaction." Diane Nash 1938-

"The ultimate test of democracy in the United States will be the way in which it solves the Negro problem." Rev Pauli Murray 1910-1985

"In toiling for the freedom of others, we shall find our own." Lydia Maria Child 1802-1880

"Shall I be inactive and permit prejudice...to remain undisturbed? Or shall I ...enlist in the ranks of those who...dare hold combat with prevailing inequity?" Prudence Crandall 1803-1880

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world." Harriet Tubman 1820-1913

"For it isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it." Eleanor Roosevelt 1884-1962

The quilt title, I Will Lift My Voice Like A Trumpet, is from a speech by Angelina Grimke Weld. Born on  a Southern plantation, she and her sister Sarah left their home for Philadelphia and became Quakers. Even the Quakers were not accepting of their radical Abolitionist views. Angelina became a speaker for Abolition. She was speaking in Philadelphia when hostile crowds surrounded the building and threatened to burn it down. Still she raised her voice for freedom.

Virginia Dunn was married to a lawyer. When the Dunns supported Civil Rights their Southern society dropped them, socially and professionally. They put up the bail money for Rosa Parks. 

Anne Braden (1924-2006) and her husband worked for housing rights. Retribution was forthcoming. She said, "It's a fine thing to sit and talk and get your heart in the right place, but it ain't going to have one bit of impact. Whites need to be visible and engaged."

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1972) was a grass roots worker. She knew from experience the truth of her words, "Ain't nothing going to be handed to you on a silver platter, nothing. That's not just black people, that's people in general. You've got to fight. Every step of the way, you've got to fight."

One who chose her battle line was Rosa Parks (1913-2005). She explained, "I knew someone had to take the first step and I made up my mind not to move."

America is still in process of working out "the Negro problem", which is of course really a human problem, involving us all. I take some comfort in Septima Clark's words (1889-1987), "I have a great belief in the fact that wherever there is chaos, it creates wonderful thinking. I consider chaos a gift."

What chaos will manifest itself in America today? What phoenix will rise from the fire of one more polarizing and igniting point? What can we do, can I do, to bring justice and mercy and peace to a broken world? 

My Green Heroes Quilt: Lois Gibbs

After completing my First Ladies quilt "Remember the Ladies"  I decided to make a series of  quilts on American leaders. I did complete "I Will Lift My Voice Like a Trumpet" which portrays women abolitionists and Civil Rights Workers. Life and several moves got in the way, but I finally  finished a quilt top for Ecology Heroes...Only because I found a wonderful website that offers information sheets and line drawn portraits for use in teaching, Better World Heroes (http://www.betterworld.net/heroes/ ).  I wanted to focus on American heroes, so I had to forgo using some favorite leaders, including Jacques Cousteau and Jane Goodall. I added a few that were not included on that website, such as Annie Dillard, whose Pilgrim at Tinker Creek impressed me so much when it was published.

I wanted to try a modern color scheme, and so chose green fabric and black embroidery thread.

I found a leaf print that added colors, including red, and set in a small border of red and green woven plaid. The blocks sat and languished for a year. I hope I get it quilted before another year goes by!

One of my favorite people on this quilt is Lois Gibbs, the Love Canal mom and activist.

Love Canal is not far from where I grew up in Tonawanda, NY. On Sunday afternoons we would drive to Niagara Falls and be back in time for dinner.

This part of New York is an industrial center. When we went to visit my cousins on Grand Island in the Niagara River,  we passed the Ashland Oil refinery which lined the road near the Grand Island Bridges. It smelled! In front of our house was an Ashland gas station which my grandfather had built in the late 1940s. My family sold the house and station in 1963, and several years later they were torn down and an apartment building was built on the site..

We'd go boating on the Niagara River and pass industrial sites of all kinds. The Tonawanda dumps, where my dad used to go as a kid, was full of hazardous waste. Uranium from  the Manhattan Project, the development of the atomic bomb, was dumped there! (We actually own a painting found in the Tonawanda Dump in the early 1970s.  I wonder if we should get it tested for radioactivity!)

The Linde Air Products plant was near the housing project in Sheridan Park where my mom grew up. Known as 'the Projects,' the duplexes housed the influx of workers for the war plants. My grandfather was an engineer at a Chevy plant. A 2001 report by Don Finch of F.A.C.T.S. states that  the Tonawanda problems  is not "as bad as the Love Canal findings of the 1970s" but he sees the entire Western New York area as a chemical wasteland. "If you move here you have a choice. Do you want to live on top of radioactive, toxic, or heavy metal materials?" The area's cancer cases were 10% higher than expected.
 http://factsofwny.org/fundmtls.htm; http://westvalleyfactsofwny.org/chrono.htm



Love Canal began as a scheme to connect the Niagara River with Lake Ontario. Money ran out and water filled the site. In the 1920s, the canal became a City of Niagara dump. In the 1940s, the U.S. Army used the dump, including for waste from the Manhattan Project. Hooker Electrochemical Company also used this site as a dump until 1953. Hooker sold the property to the City of Niagara for $1. In 1955 the City of Niagara built a school on the property, and a second on was built a year later.And in 1957 the Love Canal housing project was built.

In 1976 reporters found toxic chemicals in sump pumps in the area. Birth defects and health problems were reported at higher than normal levels. On August 2, 1978, Lois Gibbs founded the Love Canal Homeowners Associations. The activists fought for four years until President Carter allocated government funds to Love Canal clean up. Nearly 900 families were relocated, and reimbursed for their lost homes. Congress passed the Superfund Act because of Love Canal.

In 1981 Lois created the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice.She proved that through activism, people can change the world.

Hooker Chemical also left behind a polluted area in Montague, MI, where we lived for four years. The site was fenced off, but it had not been cleaned up  Residents there were concerned that in the future people would forget its history, and build there.

My parents both died of cancer. When mom was diagnosed in 1990, at age 57, she was asked if she had been exposed to toxins, and she thought of Love Canal and the polluted corridor of Western New York.

For more information on Lois Gibbs:
http://chej.org/about/our-story/about-lois/
http://www.fredonia.edu/convocation/gibbsbio.asp

Dear Nelton

Many years ago I was at the Royal Oak, MI flea market and saw a trunk full of old papers that had been lifted from the streets. I asked the seller what he wanted for the papers, and he said $10, which was an awful lot of money for what was trash! I gathered up all the papers I could, noting there were covered with a thick sprinkling of baby powder. There was one album with papers, a few photos, and a few letters.

Back home, I sorted the papers. There was a whole man's history in receipts, from the purchase of a ring to payments on a house and furniture. I later sold these to a collector of African American ephemera.

The letters were very moving. George S. Miller was a vet who was trying to get the government to cover his medical expenses for injuries incurred in the war. He was in love with a woman named Nelton, who had a son. He poured his heart out to her, how he wanted to be a father to her son.

I made a little quilt with scanned letters and photos printed on fabric. Because George's life was in such turmoil, the quilt is chaotic. I used a vintage napkin for the background, which I stamped with various paint patterns. I layered my scans with fabric bits, and appliqued threads and buttons and silk flowers.

George's handwriting was not hard to read, and he wrote three sheets of paper per letter, using three-hole-punched lined school paper.

The photos showed two women, one of whom I believe to be Nelton.

Several houses photos were included. I found a paper with his address.

My heart still breaks when I read this letter from George. I wonder if he and Nelton ever were able to be together as a family. I sure hope so.

*****

2019 Update:

I searched Ancestry.com trying to discover more about George and Nelton.

Nelton E. Battles was born December 24, 1923, and died in Highland Park, MI, on March 16, 1987. George's 1962 letter to Nelton is addressed Seebalt St. in Detroit and the records show that in 1990 Nelton lived at 4382 Seebalt St.

You can see that the home in the black and white photos I found with the papers is the same house as pictured below. Today tet home is foreclosed and owned by the city. It was once a lovely house built in 1915. This Westside neighborhood is now mostly vacant homes today.

Seebalt Street home where Nelton once lived

In one letter George says he is sending money to Mrs. Nelton Battles, 2635 Cortland St., Detroit. That location is vacant land today.

George S. Miller's 1951 letter from the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States is addressed to 730 W Euclid St. in Detroit. I have seen Euclid St. I remembered it from the 1960s and several times in the last few years we have gotten lost coming off the expressway and drove past Euclid. The street is just north of New Center where I have visited Henry Ford Hospital specialists. The house appears to have been torn down. The houses next to where it would have been were built around 1907, large brick houses that once were lovely.

It is possible that I have found George in the census.

The 1930 Census for Detroit shows George Mill, born around 1926, 4 years old, living with parents George and Myrtle Miller and siblings Gladys and JC. Both parents were born in South Carolina. George Sr. worked in an auto factory. They paid $30 rent at 664 Livingston St., Detroit. I can't find Livingston on the map or in an internet search. The area must have been torn down years ago, perhaps during 'urban renewal' when African American communities were displaced to build the expressways.

The 1940 Census for Detroit shows George was 14 years old. Goerge was 40 and worked as a line foreman for road construction, earning $945 a year. Myrtle was 39 years old. John C., George, and Lilia were the children. The family lived on 3888 St. Antoine St. This is another street I have driven by. It's not far from Orchestra Hall where we attend the Detroit Symphony.

From Detroit Streets:

Beaubien and St. Antoine originated from the two Beaubien brothers, Lambert and Antoine, each of whom received half of the family farm after the death of their father, Jean Baptiste Beaubien, one of the first white settlers on the river, opposite Fort Dearborn. Lambert was a colonel in the First Regiment of Detroit's militia. He fought in the War of 1812. Antoine chose to name his property after his patron saint, St. Antoine. Antoine was a lieutenant colonel in the Michigan Territorial Militia. He donated a chunk of his land for the Sacred Heart Academy, once located at the corner of Jefferson and St. Antoine.
http://apps.detnews.com/apps/history/index.php?id=199#ixzz0qOP2Vxki

It would be great to locate George's military records.

Autumn Leaves

I have always loved fall best of all the seasons. I love the colors of the leaves, the gold and reds, the browns and oranges. When I was a girl, every fall my family took a day trip to the Allegheny Mountains to see friends on a farm. I loved how the colored trees looked on the hillsides, huge rounded masses of color next to color.

My mom was an oil painter, and her earliest paintings were copies of Robert Wood landscapes, trees in autumn. This still life painting hangs in my aunt's house, and was Mom painted it in the early 1960s.

When our son was little, we would walk into town together as a family, sometimes to go to the school playground and sometimes to visit the ice cream stand. One autumn, I noticed red leaves on a branch against a brilliant blue sky. I later took a photograph, and some years later it became the center of a quilt.

I used bleach and a fine permanent marker for leaf details. The branches are knotted in places. I then added a border of pieced leaves. It is all hand appliqued and hand quilted.The fabrics are all hand dyed, some purchased and some I dyed.

I also have a nice collection of handkerchiefs featuring leaves, and have always planned to make an entire hanky quilt of leaves!

The trees are still green here along the West Michigan lake shore. A little red is showing here and there, so I expect a glorious riot of color is to come. Nature's last hurrah before its long sleep.