Tales of First Ladies and Their Quilt Blocks


Book Description

Eight traditional blocks in both 12" and 6" sizes pay tribute to first ladies that have earned their place in history. Relates multiple techniques for the author's favorite blocks named after admirable women as well as interesting tidbits of each of their lives.




Quilt Stories


Book Description

Literary works honoring the role of women and quilting in history—from Harriet Beecher Stowe, Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Walker, Sharyn McCrumb, and others. This collection of stories, plays, poems, and songs featuring the making of quilts—written from 1845 to the present, mainly by American women—documents women’s literary history. Featuring the work of Bobbie Ann Mason, Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Walker, Sharyn McCrumb, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Marge Piercy, Adrienne Rich, and many others, Quilt Stories is a colorful literary album of stories, poems, and plays that celebrate quilting as a pattern in women’s history. These stories—grouped under the themes of memory, courtship, struggle, mystery, and wisdom—reflect the importance of quilting in the lives of American women, not only as a practical craft and a creative outlet, but also as an integral part of the social community. “The 28 works included in Quilt Stories restore to women a part of their history and their sense of community, an important service in a present time in which quilting has perhaps become a more private and individual art, though it still serves widely as a medium for social exchange and cooperative endeavor.” —Appalachian Quarterly “Macheski has pieced together a variety of literary fabrics into a unique design which represents women’s struggle for identity in a masculine world.” —Benton, Arkansas Courier “Each writing shares a glimpse of what quilting means to those people who practice the art and how it helps us to see, remember, learn, know and express our feelings.” —Quilt World “An innovative approach to writing the history of women.” —Northwest Ohio Quarterly




Every Quilt Tells a Story


Book Description

Every quilt tells a story. There is a universality in those stories as well as in the quilts themselves and the threads that hold them together. In the tradition of Erma Bombeck, Helen Kelley shares her tales of quilts and quiltmaking with trademark charm and wit. This gifted storyteller gathers the snippings, threads, and scraps of everyday life and effortlessly stitches them together to create a narrative to which every quilter can relate. Each piece--from the humorous to the heartwarming--touches your soul and makes you smile, reminding you of your own passion for quilts and the stories they tell. Helen Kelley is an author, instructor, and lecturer, but she is, first and foremost, a quiltmaker. For twenty years, this "Erma Bombeck" of the quilting world has parlayed her passion for all things quilt into her enormously popular "Loose Threads" column in "Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine."




Quilters, Their Quilts, Their Studios, Their Stories


Book Description

"Jo Packham recounts the personal experiences of more than twenty artisans who share their love of textile art and their distinctive talents and techniques. You will look inside their studio spaces and learn how their creative processes make their work fashion the ordinary into the beautiful."--P. [4] of cover.




Love of Quilts


Book Description

DIVThere are more than 20 million quilters in the United States, and 78 percent of dedicated quilters read for pleasure. To reach this vast group, we've expanded our line of quilting books by bringing back "A Patchwork of Pieces, previously published in 1993. "Love of Quilts features twenty-eight entertaining short stories about quilts and quilters collected from the pages of classic magazines such as "Godey's Lady's Book, Harper's Bazaar, and "Good Housekeeping, introducing readers to the captivating worlds of quilters in other times and places. From courtings that nearly go astray to husbands and wives brought together by quilts to quilters obsessed with securing scraps, "Love of Quilts has something for every quilter. Fascinating fiction, these stories also provide important social history. This book also includes a bibliography of quilt fiction and a time line that lists American quilt fiction, plays, poems, and patterns published from 1845 to 1940./div




The Story Quilts of Yvonne Wells


Book Description

A comprehensive and richly illustrated survey of one of the most significant and intriguing quilters of the 21st century, featuring 109 color plates of Wells's narrative quilts with intimate commentaries by Wells herself




Great Short Stories by American Women


Book Description

Choice collection of 13 stories includes "Life in the Iron Mills" by Rebecca Harding Davis, Zora Neale Hurston's "Sweat," plus superb fiction by Kate Chopin, Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, many others.




Facts & Fabrications: Unraveling the History of Quilts & Slavery


Book Description

“A renowned quilt historian . . . present[s] what she considers to be an accurate assessment of slavery, quilts and the Underground Railroad.” —Time Recall an unforgettable phase of our nation’s history with America’s leading quilt historian. Barbara Brackman presents the most current research on the role of quilts during the time of slavery, emancipation, and the Underground Railroad. Nine quilt projects combine historic blocks with Barbara’s own designs. Did quilts really lead the way to freedom? What role did quilts play? Barbara explores the stories surrounding the Underground Railroad. Read about the people who were there! First-person accounts, newspaper and military records, and surviving quilts all add clues. YOU decide how to interpret the stories and history, fabrication and facts as you learn about this fascinating time in history. Excellent resource for elementary through high school learners—curriculum included! “Quilters interested in African American slavery and quilting will find many historically accurate, teachable moments within these pages. The first-personal accounts by slaves of their quilt making, quilt parties, and stolen quilts make emotional reading. A must-have book for your quilting library!” —Kyra Hicks, author of Black Threads “Brackman skillfully assembles accurate historical evidence along with beautiful quilt examples infused with slave-era symbolism.” —Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi, author of Threads of Faith “Many of persons featured or quoted are women with a connection to the ‘peculiar institution’: slaves, escaped slaves, freed slaves, plantation owners, abolitionists, and so forth . . . teaches history through quilting and offers fun projects for history-minded quilters . . . the stories offer good starting points for one’s own research and the projects are beautiful.” —Beth’s Bobbins




Barbara Brackman's Civil War Sampler


Book Description

* This remarkable book features 50 quilt blocks to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War.




A Grizzly in the Mail and Other Adventures in American History


Book Description

For more than twenty years, Tim Grove has worked at the most popular history museums in the United States, helping millions of people get acquainted with the past. This book translates that experience into an insider’s tour of some of the most interesting moments in American history. Grove’s stories are populated with well-known historical figures such as John Brown, Charles Lindbergh, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and Sacagawea—as well as the not-so-famous. Have you heard of Mary Pickersgill, seamstress of the Star-Spangled Banner flag? Grove also has something to say about a few of our cherished myths, for instance, the lore surrounding Betsy Ross and Eli Whitney. Grove takes readers to historic sites such as Harpers Ferry, Fort McHenry, the Ulm Pishkun buffalo jump, and the Lemhi Pass on the Lewis and Clark Trail and traverses time and space from eighteenth-century Williamsburg to the twenty-first-century Kennedy Space Center. En route from Cape Canaveral on the Atlantic to Cape Disappointment on the Pacific, we learn about planting a cotton patch on the National Mall, riding a high wheel bicycle, flying the transcontinental airmail route, and harnessing a mule. Is history relevant? This book answers with a resounding yes and, in the most entertaining fashion, shows us why.




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