Hmong Story Cloths: History, Culture, and Art

The Hmong people have struggled to preserve their ethnic identity for centuries, pressured to leave China for Laos in the mid-1800s. During the Vietnam War the Hmong people of Laos assisted the American Troops. America left Laos and in 1975 the royal government fell to the Communists, who persecuted the Hmong. Perhaps 100,000 Hmong died in the conflict and the Communist persecution. The Hmong fled to Thailand where they lived in refugee camps.

In the refugee camps the Hmong women created Story Cloths, appliqué and embroidered art depicting their old way of life, the Communist persecution, and their escape to the refugee camps.

America accepted Hmong immigrants in the late 1970s, with about 150,000 settling in the US; about 5,000 settled in Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania. It was a time of economic distress and many Americans resented the special treatment the Hmong received from the government. The extent of the Hmong people's support to America during Vietnam was not well known.

Since we lived in Philly in the 1970s and 1980s I was familiar with the Hmong and their reverse appliqué and Story Cloths. I requested Hmong Story Cloths by Linda A. Gerdner to learn more about the Hmong and their amazing appliquéd historical documents.

Gerdner has worked with the Hmong and traveled to Laos and has an extensive collection of Story Cloths, cultural artifacts, and photographs.

Gerdner first offers a background to the Hmong people, their history, and how they created their Story Cloths. Beautiful photography of the whole cloths and significant details accompany the text. Chapters address specific Story Cloth themes, including The Hmong People's Journey, Traditional Life in Laos, the Hmong New Year, Hmong Folktales, and Neighboring Ethnic People. The detail in the cloths can be overwhelming but Gerdner's analysis explains the message and significance of the motifs.

In an interview with the Hmong Times, Gerdner gave her purpose for writing this book:

• As a tribute to a special cohort of Laotian Hmong who created a new form of textile art as a means of sharing their cultural heritage
• As a legacy for subsequent generations of Hmong Americans who wish to learn about their historical and cultural heritage
• To promote cultural awareness and understanding for those who do not have a Hmong heritage
• To pay tribute to the extraordinary needlework skills that were used to create this new art form

The book can be enjoyed on many levels: as a social and cultural study, a history, and as a study of a particular art and craft.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Hmong Story Cloths
Linda A. Gerdner, PhD
Schiffer Publications
$34.99 hard cover
266 color and B&W photos
ISBN:9780764348594

1857 Album Update & More

This month's blocks of the 1857 Album quilt from Sentimental Stitches are done, except for the embroidery.

I have done a little more on the Edgar Allan Poe quilt. I fused with the purple curtain fabric, pleating and getting it just right.

Our son is moving into his first house! The family room furniture all belonged to him so we ordered two chairs:

My friend Theresa has been working on the MODA Bee-autiful quilt. I just loved it and downloaded the patterns. I have one block done. You can find the patterns at the MODA Bake Shop here.

fresh from the hoop, my block one of  Bee-autiful Quilt-a-long

It seems with getting our son packed up, the July 4 holiday, and just life I am slow at getting anything completed. I suppose that is just summer.

Angels of Detroit: Dystopia Now

Detroit is America's poster child of a collapsed rust belt city. Empty houses and factories stare with empty windows, pillaged of anything salable. Crumbling roads lead to grasslands.

Detroit has a vibrant Midtown with a first class orchestra, amazing art museum, historical and science museums, trendy brew-houses and restaurants, and swanky stores that draw suburbanites.

Detroit is rising, reinventing itself. Detroit should be plowed under and forgotten.

The visions of the city and its future clash in Angels of Detroit, Christopher Hebert's sprawling novel charactered by old timers and a child, disillusioned activists from the 'burbs, and people who just stumble into alliances they come to rue.

The novel is not a paen to the past, although some characters remind us of Detroit's glory days. It is not an imagining of a rosy future. Instead Detroit is a battleground of idealism and profiteering.

A group of Millennial drop-out activists plot to bring down a huge Detroit based company whose drone is implicated in the destruction of a school. A man in debt is sent to set up housing for a human trafficking ring. A carpenter moves into his deceased grandmother's house and helps a 70 year old woman create a garden in the urban prairie while imagining the deconstruction of the past.

There are a lot of characters, a lot of back stories slowly revealed, but they are all brought together in the end. As flawed as each character is, we come to understand their journey.

"Set in a city that's either deteriorating beyond hope or rising from the ashes, Angels of Detroit pulls off the magic trick of all great fiction: it makes the world we live in now seem both wondrous and strange." Adam Ross, author of Mr. Peanut

I received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Angels of Detroit: A Novel
Christopher Hebert
Bloomsbury USA
Publication Date: July 5, 2016
$27 hard cover
ISBN:9781632863638

One Bundle of Fun: Quilt Patterns from Precuts

Sue Pfau's new book One Bundle of Fun: Turn Any Bundle, Roll, or Pack into a Great Quilt offers 12 pieced patterns using Layer Cakes, Jelly Rolls, and Fat Quarters.

These quilts convinced me: precuts have the benefit of being color and theme coordinated, and they save time since some of the cutting is already done.

Precut fabrics sold by fabric companies include:

• Layer Cakes, 10" squares
• Jelly Rolls, 2 1/2" x 42" stripes
• Fat Quarters, 18" x 21" quarters of a yard
• Charm Squares, 5" squares 

Each precut collection includes all the color ways and designs from a fabric collection.

Precuts should not be washed before using but they should be measured as they may not be true; for instance a 10" square precut pack may actually measure 10 1/8".

Pfau used MODA fabrics in her sample quilts but you do not have to buy precuts for the projects--you can use your own fabrics using Pfau's advice for selection.

Electrified designed and made by Sue Pfau

The patterns are diverse in design and in difficulty. A full color photo of the quilt, materials list, cutting instructions, assembly instructions with steps and illustrations, and finishing are included. Small versions in different color ways offer alternates.  Instructions for enlarging the patterns adapt them for bed size quilts.

Magnetized designed and made by Sue Pfau

I loved these dynamic and colorful quilts.

Bejeweled Nine Patch designed and made by Sue Pfau

I received a free ebook from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

One Bundle of Fun
Sue Pfau
Martingale
$18.99 soft cover
Publication Date: July 12, 2016
ISBN: 9781604687521

"What's important is the past": Absalom's Daughters by Suzanne Feldman

In the Jim Crow South of the 1950s two girls find their reflection in each other's faces. Although one is black and one white they share the same father-- 'skirt-chasing, adulteratin' white trash'--who has abandoned both families. A rumor comes to town that their father is to inherit a legacy, and being 'progeny' the girls are encouraged to find their father and demand their inheritance.

Sixteen-year-old Judith is white, uneducated, and devastatingly poor. What she possesses is a beautiful talent for singing. Hearing the Negro music aired from New York City--only at night due to its scandalous sexuality--Judith longs to go to New York and become a famous singer.

Cassie, fifteen and cinnamon in color, lives with her grandmother and mother, a hardworking laundress. Grandmother determined that her daughter--and plans for her granddaughter--to take white lovers with the expectation of diluting their African blood until they can pass as white. Cassie's mother hopes to spare her daughter this indignation, encouraging her to follow Judith's quest for the father and leave town.

The story of the girls' road trip across the south is delightful reading, episodic with wonderful characters and twists and memorable characters.

Early in the story Cassie meets Ovid Beale who tells her that mules 'useter be colored folk'; it is easier for colored folk to turn into a mule because they are 'already half one thing and half another.' And it is this theme of passing between two worlds, the legacy of slavery making colored folks black but not black, appearing white while being deemed legally black, that informs the story.

On their travels each sister acts out different roles according to the expectations of the audience and what they need to do to survive. Cassie acts the black servant to Judith, then tries passing as white, learning about herself and deciding on her future. Cassie learns that what is important is the past, to never forget her roots.

It took time for me to get hooked to the story, then it picked up considerably. The characters are interesting and Feldman has an original take on the timeless theme of race and identity in America.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Absalom's Daughters
by Suzanne Feldman
Henry Holt & Co,
Publication July 5, 2016
$26 hard cover
ISBN: 9781627794534

Remembering the Reason

It is not about the fireworks, barbecued hot dogs, family gatherings, or parades. Let us remember that first July 4 and what our patriot forefathers embarked upon.

We often watch our DVD of the musical 1776 which we saw live at Independence Hall in Philly back in 1976.









Start a new book on American history:

Read Nathaniel Philbrick's Bunker Hill and Valiant Ambition to learn what you never knew about the American Revolution.

http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2014/05/when-yankees-realized-they-had-declared.html

http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/05/valiant-ambition-by-nathaniel-philbrick.html

Or David McCullough's 1776 which I read before I was reviewing books.
http://books.simonandschuster.com/1776/David-McCullough/9780743226721

Find more Revolutionary War books at
https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/revolutionary-war







To learn more about how our government was honed over time read Madison's Gift: Five Friendships that Built America
http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2015/02/madisons-gift-five-partnerships-that.html










For a fictional look behind the scenes try a novel like The Midwife's Revolt by Jodi Daynard.

http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2015/04/meanwhile-back-in-braintree.html







You can also have fun researching the Revolution in other ways.

Check out your ancestry. You may have a Revolutionary hero in the family! My husband did:
http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2015/11/william-nelson-revolutionary-war-soldier.html

Collect textiles that celebrate American history, including handkerchiefs, linens and quilts.

http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2012/07/independence-day.html

Learn about Patriotic quilts.

http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/02/quilts-presidential-and-patriotic-by.html

And--yes--enjoy those hot dogs, fireworks, and family gatherings! Best wishes for a joyous and safe July 4 celebration.

Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon by Larry Tye

Last month, on the anniversary of the shooting of Bobby Kennedy, I wrote about how it had affected me and my schoolmates. The day before I had finished reading Larry Tye's new biography Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon.

I had requested the book because of the title and its reference to the growth, politically and personally, behind his becoming the man whose death meant so much to my generation.

Tye reminds us of Bobby before was a crusader for the poor, before his determination to heal the racial divide: the commie hating, law and order, political operative who worked for family friend Senator Joseph McCarthy and approved wire-taping Martin Luther King, Jr. The Bobby who wanted to bring down Jimmy Hoffa and Fidel Castro.

The expectations of his father and the examples of his older brothers meant Bobby was filling the roles set out for him. Until the death of his brother President John Kennedy, a blow that sent Bobby spiraling into grief but also freed him to explore his own path and seek his own way.

Bobby was a complex man with many 'sides' and Tye brings all to life, marking each stride in Bobby's growing maturity and wisdom.

It was Bobby's empathy and determination to act against injustice that has immortalized him. "Lets face it, I appeal best to people who have problems," he remarked during his presidential run. But it was no PR act. He truly loved children. He was enraged by the poverty he encountered and that he deemed was worse than what he had seen abroad. And he was courageous, fearless. His extemporized speech to a nearly all-black crowd, telling them about the assassination of of MLK, was an eloquent and poetic plea for compassion.

"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice towards those who still suffer within our county, whether they be white or whether they be black. So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King...but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country...for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke."

Bobby was not a perfect man and he made errors and misjudgments. But this biography shows us how an individual, through life experience and growth in wisdom, became the moral compass of a people. Could a President Bobby Kennedy have altered America's trajectory? All I know is that his message needs to be heard again today.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon
by Larry Tye
Random House
$32.00 hard cover
Publication Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-812-99334-9