Happy Independence Day

Fourth of July by Norine Antuck and Beth Donaldson, 1997.

Happy Fourth of July!

Nick's Quilt Update

All the blocks are finished on my Hazel Ridge Path quilt. I still need to add the border (which will have some piecing). The top is in three rows, because I'm going to quilt the rows, then put them together. I will also quilt the borders before attaching them to the quilt.

I'd like to encourage any Macy's shoppers in Michigan to help out Reading Is Fundamental. Are you interested in a great opportunity to save money this summer and help support children’s literacy? Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), the nation’s largest children and families’ literacy nonprofit, is partnering with Macy’s to Be Book Smart and help provide one million free books to underserved children. We invite you to join us. Together we can Be Book Smart! From June 22–July 31, 2012, give $3 at your local Macy’s and receive a $10 off a purchase of $50 or more. Give more and you'll save more! For example: Give $3, get $10 off a $50 purchase (a $7 savings!); give $9, get $30 off a $150 purchase (a $21 savings!). Some exclusions and restrictions apply, so check the coupon for details. Macy’s will donate 100% of every $3 to RIF. With your help, we can reach our goal of providing one million books to kids. Spread the word and help make RIF’s vision of a literate America a reality! This year our federal funding was cut 92%! So please help us out if you can.

Ships That Pass in the Night

 It's time for Amy's Creative Side to host her Blogger's Quilt Festival: Spring 2012. She asked that we post a quilt and tell it's story. This is a quilt I made way back in 1995 for my book Block by Block. I loved working with only two colors, deep navy and pure white. I used two block patterns, Sailboat, and a star pattern I designed and called Sailor's Star. The sashing is plain and the cornerstones are 4 patches, giving the quilt the overall diagonal design. It was machine pieced and machine quilted one block at a time. I hate machine quilting a large top, so I always break my tops up, quilt them and then put them together. My goal is that you can't tell from the front, that that was my method. Two summers ago this quilt was loaned to Gijsbert van Frankenhuyzen to use as a prop for his illustration in the children's book, F is For Friendship. I was thrilled when I saw what my quilt inspired!

Remember to visit Amy's Creative Side to see the other blogs and quilts in the festival. Till next time....Happy Quilting!

Sneak Peek at new exhibit

Here's a sneak peek at our new exhibit at the Michigan State University Museum.

QR Code Quilt
Scan it with your smart phone and see where it takes you.

I made this quilt over the weekend. I shamelessly stole the idea from a picture I saw on the Fun With Barb blog. It was made by Deirdre Abbotts of Westport, CT and was displayed at the Northern Star Quilters' Guild show. She was inspired by the red and white exhibit Infinite Variety. When I saw it I thought it would be perfect for our new exhibit Patterns of Inquiry. This exhibit will present new directions in quilt-related research. Curator Mary Worrall like the idea too and created a QR Code which I made into this quilt.

And the quilt really works. If you have a smart phone, scan the quilt's image to see where it takes you. (If, like me you don't have a smart phone, just click on the quilt.)

I hope to see some of you at the exhibit. There will be over 30 quilts. The exhibit runs from June 3 - September 23, 2012.

Till next time......Happy Quilting!

Last night I spoke to the great ladies of the Quilt Guild of Metro Detroit. The topic was Quiltmaking in Detroit in the 1930s. The power point lecture is really cool. Not many people know that there were many quilt shows in Detroit where attendance was over 50,000! I showed slides of quilts from the MSU Museum's Clark Family Collection and brought a few quilts of my own.

Flower Lady

Double Wedding Ring, Edna O'dell, Okemos, MI, 1940

Dresden Plate with Butterflies

Garden Bouquet, A Nancy Page pattern by Florence
LaGanke Harris syndicated in papers all over the country
in the 1930s.

This fan variation was published in the Detroit News as Spanish Fleet.

We touched on the topic of quilt documentation. Here's the link to the Michigan Quilt Project form:
http://museum.msu.edu/glqc/PDFs/MQPform.pdf. If you live in Michigan or your quilt was made in Michigan, fill out the form, take a picture and send it to me. Your quilt will be entered in the Quilt Index. Thanks ladies, I had a great time!

Till next time......Happy Quilting.

Spring

 Spring has come early to Michigan. I work on the Michigan State University campus which is blooming everywhere. These two glorious trees are right across from my office building.

 It is a Japanese flowering crab tree. The buds are pink and the inside of the blossoms are white. The combination is stunning. They are my favorite trees on campus.

I love them so much my DH bought me the same type of flowering crab for my front yard.  It hasn't bloomed yet and it has a little way to go until it looks like the ones at work, but I am hopeful.

On Tuesday, April 17 I'll be visiting the Quilt Guild of Metro Detroit where I'll be speaking about Quiltmaking in Detroit in the 1930s. Guild members are invited to bring quilts from the 1930s, so it  should be a great show and tell too.I hope to see some of you there.

Till next time.......Happy Quilting.

The Red One goes to China

Photo by Pearl Yee Wong

My quilt, The Red One will be traveling to China as part of the exhibit, The Sum of Many Parts: 25 Quiltmakers in 21st-Century America. It will start traveling this summer. There will be a catalog with the exhibit, so that's cool too. The Red One is a charm quilt. Every fabric is the same shape and size, but each one is different. This quilt was completed in 1999 and contains 604 hexagons. The edge was knife-edge finished after the quilting was completed. If you follow this link, http://www.quiltindex.org/basicdisplay.php?kid=1E-3D-13A8, you can see the fabrics a little closer by using the Quilt Index's zoom tool.

The fabrics were collected over a period of many years starting in 1985 when we started the Capitol City Quilt Guild's first small group. We met at Georgia's house and called ourselves the Charm Group. We now meet at Daisy's each month. That's over 25 years of quilting and friendship, pretty cool.

I've made some tweaks to my blog layout. I've separated my blogs into two groups. The first group is the Block Exchange Blog Roll and are made up of blogs from my friends in my small groups plus Pepper Cory, who taught many of us when she owned a quilt shop in East Lansing, Michigan. The other  blogs I enjoy are in the list below. That moved my favorite feature, The Daily Puppy after the blogs.

A big thank you to everyone who's helped in my transition to my new blog address and welcome to my new followers. Your support means so much.

Till next time.....Happy Quilting

Behind the Scenes Tours

I celebrated National Quilt Day by giving four tours of the Michigan State University Museum's collections center. I brought out 16 quilts. Here's four of the quilts I shared. To see the full record, click on the link below each quilt.

Album top c1860, quilting 1961

Pinwheel Flower, c1860. Possibly slave made.

Railroad Crossing c1860

Album quilt, c1860

To learn more about Behind the Scenes Tours at the Great Lakes Quilt Center at the Michigan State University Museum, go to this page: http://museum.msu.edu/glqc/collections_tours.html.

Till next time......Happy Quilting

New Name, New Address, Same Blog

Hello to any of my quilt friends who have found me. I've been asked by a quilt shop in Virginia to stop using the name Quilt Doctor. Apparently they own it. Who knew? Anyway, I'm not all that attached to the name and for me it was just a joke, so I'm complying with their request. This means I had to change my address for my email and blog. So, if you're reading this, you've found http://bethdonaldson.blogspot.com/.

I'm sure my readership will drop off for awhile until people re-find me. If I'm listed on your blog roll, thanks and please change it to my new address, http://bethdonaldson.blogspot.com/.

Hopefully this won't cause too much trouble and I'm sorry for any inconvenience to you.

And now for some quilting news. I've got some more blocks done on the Hazel Ridge Path quilt. To see the full story, go to this blog post, http://bethdonaldson.blogspot.com/2012/01/new-project.html.

 
















Till next time.......Happy Quilting

The 1864 Belfast Flag Quilt

If you've ever wanted to go to a quilt history lecture, but couldn't get there, or your guild never hired a quilt historian, watch this video. It's about a Civil War quilt from Belfast, Maine. It features a lecture by Independent Quilt Historian and New England Quilt Museum Curator, Pam Weeks. It's also has great insights on how to do quilt research. Enjoy!
The 1864 Belfast Flag Quilt from Belfast Community on Vimeo.
Pam has recently authored a book (with Don Beld) on pot holder quilts, "Civil War Quilts" and you can purchase it on Amazon.

Till next time.......Happy Quilting

Quilt As You Go

Leah at the Free Motion Quilting Project blog is asking quilters to post quilts they've made using a quilt as you go technique. My friends know that anytime a quilt gets big, I quilt it in pieces, then put it together. So when I saw Leah's post I just had to jump on this one.

The quilt I'm featuring is called "No, But It's My Dog." I made it in 2007 and it was juried into the AQS show in Nashville. It didn't win, and although I was honored "just to get in..." I found myself to be a very bad and bitter loser. LOL!!! It's hard to see from the picture, but there is a little dog in front of the house. When people see the quilt, they ask, "Is that your house?". I reply, "No, but it's my dog!". My dog Mickey passed away a few years ago, but he was very large, white with black spots and very sweet.

The quilt was hand quilted in five pieces: the center medallion that includes the corner appliqued flowers near the house; the two units on either side of the house that include the Carolina Lilies and appliqued borders; and the top and bottom that have the Carolina Lillies and appliqued borders. I used a streamlined version of the method I wrote in my book, Block By Block (That Patchwork Place, 1995), now out of print.

Click on the quilt to see it larger.

Make sure and check out Leah's blog for more quilt as you go quilts.

Till next time.... Happy Quilting!

A Visit to Lincoln, Nebraska

Watch this video to learn some hi-tech ways to analyze old quilts.

I'm going to the visit this place in October when they host the American Quilt Study Group's Seminar. I can't wait!!!

Till next time......Happy Quilting!