Healing Quiltmaking and Jim Crow Segretation: "The Colored Car" by Jean Alicia Elster

Last weekend we visited Leon & Lulu's wonderful home decor store for their annual Books & Author's fair. We visited with 18 Metro Detroit writers of all ages and genres. 10% of the proceeds from book sales went to the Oakland County Literacy Council so of course we had to buy some books.

One of the books I found was Jean Alicia Elster's "The Colored Car" based on her own grandmother's experiences growing up in Detroit and traveling from Detroit to Tennessee in 1922. Ms Elster garnered stories and recipes from her grandmother.

The Ford family lives in Detroit where Douglas runs a saw mill and his wife May uses her home economics education to put up food, sew clothes, and run the household. Several family recipes are included in the text. They live in a working class neighborhood of immigrants. May grew up in Tennessee and has not been back in nine years. There had been a terrible flood in her hometown and May decides it is time to go home and see her family again. She decides to bring her young daughters along.

Her eldest daughter Patsy is 12 years old, just taking over her brother's family chores now he is helping in his dad's business. The train trip seems a big adventure. Her mother has sewn new clothes for the girls, and they wear white gloves for traveling. They sit in upholstered seats and are served delicate sandwiches. But in Cincinnati they must change trains to ride in the "colored car". It has no cushioned seats and a stove spews out smoke. Patsy resists getting on. She had never encountered the Jim Crow laws of the south before.

How Patsy deals with her collision with a new reality is the focus of the second half of the book. Her grandmother gives her fabric to start her first quilt, a Fence Rail quilt. She tells her granddaughter that she is to put all her pain into the quilt. When the quilt is completed she will be free of the bad memories.

Patsy has been profoundly disturbed by her experience. The family faces another crisis but things turns out okay. There is drama in the book, but nothing to give a child nightmares. Ms Elster explores serious issues in context of a charming family's life.

As I was talking to the author I learned that quiltmaking played a role in the book. How cool was that? She was not a quiltmaker herself, but her family had many.

To make the Fence Rail quilt Patsy's grandmother gave her fabric to cut into 1 1/2" x 6 1/2" pieces. Patsy was given a brass thimble and shown how to use a running stitch to sew the quilt. Once the blocks were made she set them together and quilted the with a running stitch. What happens to the quilt? Read the book and find out!

For an interview with the author visit SORMAG"S Blog.

As Ms Elster notes in the forward to her book, the history of civil rights can be traced through lawsuits against the railroads. One early crusader was the formidable journalist and activist Ida B. Wells who appears on my quilt I Will Lift My Voice Like a Trumpet. Like Patsy, Ida resisted being sent to "the colored car" and started a campaign. Read more about her here:
http://www.biography.com/people/ida-b-wells-9527635#later-career
http://people.duke.edu/~ldbaker/classes/AAIH/caaih/ibwells/ibwbkgrd.html

On a personal note, my mother told me of her first train ride from Kane, PA to Albany, NY to see her grandparents. Mom was only five and had never seen a person of color before and the porters were African American. She asked my grandmother, "Why is that man brown?" My grandmother wanted to end the discussion and told her "Because he is made of chocolate." Well, my mom went up and bit the man on the hand! It was quite a shock to all involved.

Perhaps biting that poor porter taught Mom that we all have the same color blood; we all feel the same pain.

Americans carry a heavy legacy.

The Colored Car
Jean Alicia Elster
Wayne State University Press
ISBN-13:978081336069
$14.95

John Quincy Adams Quilting

I have been quilting JQA in a cross hatch. These photos also show the appliquéd motifs with embroidered edges.

Most of the other quiltmakers preparing presidents for Sue Reich's traveling Presidents Quilt show say they are still thinking. That makes me wish that instead of diving in after being inspired I had taken more time to actually do the work. I tend to work in a white heat. 

My biggest concern was that I cut away fabric from under the appliquéd motifs, but forgot to do that for the JQA photo and Mendhi letter. I don't like what is happening with them and may have to stuff that part...which would have been way easier before layering and quilting by inseting a piece of batting. It is a "make it work" moment. Hopefully a "happy accident" one as well. (Clichés homage to Tim Gunn and Bob Ross!)

I also have been reading a upcoming book on the culinary life of John and Abigail Adams, courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher. In other words, what JQA ate growing up. Since he left Braintree with his dad for Paris when he was 13 he missed out on a lot of that good old American home cooking. Look for my review in a few days. I may have to try some of those recipes first!

Quilts and Quiltmaking in "The Invention of Wings" by Sue Monk Kidd

Sue Monk Kidd's latest book (the author of The Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair) imagines the plantation childhood of Sarah Moore Grimke' (1792-1873) who became an abolitionist and a promoter of women's rights.  The Invention of Wings reveals the story through the voices of Sarah and her slave Handful, called Hetty by her owners.


Sarah Grimke' from I Will Lift My Voice Like A Trumpet by Nancy Bekofske

Angelina Grimke' from I Will Lift My Voice Like a Trumpet by Nancy Bekofske

Sarah Grimke' and her sister Angelina were born into one of Charlestown's most important and distinguished families. Their father was a Revolutionary War hero and a successful lawyer. The Grimke's were deeply religious Episcopalians. But the need for slave labor to maintain the family wealth was necessary.

Sarah's mother dealt out harsh punishments for minor offenses committed by the slaves, appalling and upsetting the young Sarah. Unlike on many plantations, there is no evidence that Mr. Grimke' sexually abused the female slaves, which often resulted in the wife's mistreatment of female slaves.

Sarah was a remarkably intelligent child who yearned to be educated along with her older brothers. But she was expected to go on the marriage market and participate in the frivolous social whirl.

For her eleventh birthday Sarah was given her own slave, Handful. Their relationship frames the story. Sarah and Handful yearn to fly beyond their conscripted lives. They have to invent their own wings.

The Grimke' sisters reject Charlestown societal values and traditions to become Quaker abolitionists in Philadelphia. But the Arch Street Meeting House found their views extremist, especially their views on the rights of women to speak publicly on political issues, to enjoy equal education, and to become ministers. They women become ardent abolitionists, focusing on their first hand experience with Southern plantation slave owners. Angelina becomes the first American woman public speaker.

 "...nights she teach me everything she knows 'bout quilts. I tore up old pants legs and dress tails and pieced 'em. Mauma say in Africa they sew charms in their quilts. I put pieces of my hair down inside mine."

Handful's Mauma is a master dressmaker and seamstress. Handful describes her mom making several quilts. One is a floral applique for the misses in 'milk-white and pink.' They have quilt frame that is raised to the ceiling by pulleys. Mauma uses quilts to hide things for safe keeping by sewing pockets on the quilts or hiding things in the batting.

The women's supplies include a box of patches; a pouch with a needle and thread; a cake of tallow to "grease the needle" so it "would almost glide through the cloth itself"; quilt stuffing; shears; tracing wheel; charcoal; stamping papers; and measuring ribbons. Handful has her own brass thimble. Stamping papers were perforated with the tracing wheel, then the charcoal rubbed through the holes to mark a quilting design. 'Measuring ribbons' I assume were early measuring tapes. As a dressmaker for the master's family Mauma had quite a nice supply of tools.

Fabrics used included an emerald green silk; pastel dress fabrics, lavender ribbons, and oxblood red, black, orange, and brown fabrics.

Handful's grandmother was born of the Fon people in Africa, an ethnic group from Benin and Nigeria. Mauma shares the old stories and vudu traditions with Handful, including the stories about when their people could fly. Mauma makes a quilt with tiny black triangles, which she calls blackbird wings, appliqued on oxblood red patches. She adds small splashes of yellow for 'sun splatter'. Handful sews on the homespun backing and they filled it with batting, feathers, and charms.

Mauma also makes a quilt that tells her life story, with each block representing a pivotal event. She cut the applique pieces freehand and stitches them onto blocks of fabric. Her Fon people all kept their history on a quilt, Mauma told Handful. To this day the Fon people make appliqued textiles with animals and objects. You can see an example at: http://www.museum.msu.edu/glqc/collections_2008.119.47.html
For an article on the appliqued cloth of the Fon people see:
http://www.epa-prema.net/abomeyGB/resources/hangings.htm

The story quilt Mauma makes is based on the famous quilts by African American quilter Harriet Powers. To learn about Powers' quilts visit:
http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_556462
http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/pictorial-quilt-116166
 http://www.historyofquilts.com/hpowers.html

Kidd discovered Grimke' by chance and delved into researching her life and career. She also went to see the Harriet Powers quilt. The events in the book are based on fact, with some tweaking of timing. I enjoyed reading the book. Kidd's Sarah is conflicted and unsure of herself, while under her tutelage her younger sibling Angelina is able to commit to her convictions and scorns public or family opinion. Handful was based on the slave Hetty given to Sarah on her eleventh birthday, but the real Hetty died young. Handful is the most vividly drawn character in the book, and her story gives the reader insight into the daily life of a plantation slave. We learn about the punishments dealt out, the Work House where masters could hire out punishments, and about free black society. Most importantly it is Handful and her mother's dreams of freedom that is best portrayed.

As a quilter it was a nice surprise to find that quilts were central to this novel. I wanted to read the novel because it was based on Sarah Grimke' and I had no idea that quilts figured into the story.

Read an interview with the author by Oprah Winfrey for her book club at
http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Oprah-Talks-with-Sue-Monk-Kidd-About-The-Invention-of-Wings

I had read Lift Up Thy Voice by Mark Perry on the sisters when researching for my quilt I Will Lift Up My Voice, the title of which came from a speech made by Angelina Grimke'.

My thanks to Viking and NetGalley for allowing me access to read the e-book.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
Published by Viking, January 7, 2014

$27.95

ISBN: 978-0670024780A New York Times #1 Bestseller

Pride and Prejudice story book quilt

My first semester at Temple University I took a course on literary criticism. The professor told the class we should be sure to take three courses. Each was an honors course: John Milton, James Joyce's Ulysses, and a year-long, two semester course on Jane Austen. I took them all before my graduation in 1978. 

Joyce was not my favorite course. I was the only female in the class. The guys all liked to puzzle out Joyce. The professor was a Freudian. Still, I managed to get an A based on my 50 page paper on Bloom in Nighttown, with a Jungian interpretation. 

I came to really enjoy John Milton. I think I bored many a person with my yammering on about him. 

But Jane Austen I loved. I have read all of her books, complete or not, many times since then. And it is great that she has become so well known thanks to the many movies and television mini-series on her books.


                                                          Little Women quilt

After I made Marian Cheever Newton Whiteside's 1952 Storybook pattern of Little Women I was inspired to try my own Storybook quilt. I chose Pride and Prejudice. I researched images for inspiration: art, fashion plates, dance instruction books, and 19th c book illustrations. I turned the images into line drawings to base my patterns on. 

Each block shows an important scene from the novel. The sisters Jane and Lizzie; Darcy telling Bingly that 'she's tolerable enough' as Lizzie overhears; Rev Collins brashly introducing himself to Darcy; Lizzie visiting Charlotte Collins; Darcy's cousin telling Lizzie how Darcy saved Bingly from an unhappy marriage; Darcy rushing off to intervene between Willoughby and Lydia; Darcy handing Lizzie his letter of explanation that reveals how Willoughby seduced his sister Gerogiana; Lizzie realizing she loved Darcy and would never see him again; a triumphant married Lydia returns home; Darcy's aunt confronting Lizzie about being engaged to Darcy; and Darcy proposing to Lizzie.

I was uncertain if I liked the pink background and blue border on this quilt. So I did another version, all in Redwork!

Here is Lydia with Willoughby and another soldier.

And here is Darcy flanked by Bingly and Bingly's sister.

Some day I hope to make another Storybook quilt. I have Pinocchio and two other Whiteside patterns. Or I may make my own favorite book again!

Update: Patterns for the Pride and Prejudice quilts are now available at my etsy store Rosemont Needle Arts found here.

A Year in Review

I have not added to this blog for over a year. But I did accomplish a lot during this time. I moved. I adopted a dog. Our son graduated from college. And we are preparing for another move this summer!
I also took up decorative painting and joined a book club.
Catch up on quilts: I designed a quilt for a wedding, based on their invitation graphics. It has a floral vine in applique and embroidery and is beaded.I designed and appliqued and am quilting a Princess Feather quilt. I used bright colors as requested. I made a kitten baby quilt. I learned to make purses and did about 12.I completed a quilt hop quilt. I also started several quilts that are sitting around as tops or blocks, waiting completion.