A Family Connection (cont'd from August 17, 2014)

Isn’t it interesting how styles come and go and then come again? Slight changes, but still rooted in the past. Is anything really new? In my last blog I told you about my meeting with Anelie Beldin and her quick identification of the pattern used to make the quilt blocks I’ve been assembling. I’m still waiting to hear from Anelie regarding the name of the particular design, but she is certain it falls in the family of the Dresden Plate. A bit of research has produced a wealth of information about the Dresden Plate and over a couple hundred examples of various versions of the pattern.

Inspired by elaborately designed porcelain plates from Dresden, Germany during the 19^th century, the quilt design became popular and widely available in the 1920’s. It was not always under the name Dresden Plate and was sometimes called Grandmother’s Sunburst, Friendship Ring, Aster, Dahlia and Sunflower. The common characteristic of various patterns is the petals that radiate from a center point, which typically create a flower shape.

The more I look at Grandma Wier’s quilt, the more I like it. I have several ideas for my own more contemporary version of the same pattern. It will look nothing like the soft colored quilt you saw in my last blog. It will be a burst of contrasting colors that will showcase shapes within shapes. Yet, it will be rooted in the Dresden Plate pattern that dates back over 200 hundred years.

Just as my Dresden Plate quilt will have connections to the past, I’ve been realizing more and more family connections as a result of this project. First of all, if I described to you a person who loves cats, loves to cook, and loves to quilt, who would you think of…ME, of course! Well, actually I’m describing my Grandma Wier. As I’ve sent out emails to family members in an effort to determine who might have a Wier quilt or information about our grandmother, these are a few things I’ve learned. I should also mention that she was a less that perfect housekeeper…also a similarity. We all know that if it weren’t for my full-time housekeeper, Verne, I’d probably live in a mess of fabric scraps and cat hair.

My efforts have also paid off with another quilt top. My brother’s daughter, Lori, who still resides in Tucson, Arizona, has one of Grandma’s quilt tops. It’s a pattern called Grandmother’s Flower Garden or French Bouquet, considered the most popular pattern after 1925. I still see versions of it today. It’s comprised of small hexagons of different colors put together in circular shapes. Lori sent me photos of her quilt top along with a letter from her mother (my sister-in-law) dated January, 2012. The following are captions from the letter:

“Now for some history behind this [quilt]:

"I received this quilt from Virginia [my mother] when I was either 17 or 18 years old [I would have been about 10 or 11 then]. They were packed in a chest in the front bedroom of their home in Tucson, which I think was on a street just about four blocks to the west of goyette Street named Eastview or something similar. [It’s actually called Eastgate Drive.] I was there one day and for some reason we were in that room and she had the chest open and showed them to me. Well, I went gaga over them and she just said something to the effect of – take them, we don’t need them.

“She said they were all made by George and Ned’s mother [that is my father and his brother who lived with us most of his life], who as I recalled dies before your dad was born. She said this great-grandmother of yours quilted all the time, had quilts everywhere. Apparently she did not put much value in cleaning her house, but sure could cook and quilt.

“Anyway, one was a blue and orange pieced fan quilt that I quilted when I lived in Payson and gave to Gary and Pam [her son and his wife]. They lost/misplaced that years ago. Then there was the green one made of over 2,000 little 1-inch squares called Garden Walk. I think I did that one a few years after the blue and orange one, and for the life of me I do not know what happened to it. Seems like I kept if for myself, but I have no recollection. So, this one is the only surviving top.”

Fascinating!

Here are the pictures of Lori’s quilt top, one of Grandma Wier’s few surviving quilts…