Unlocking Your Museum - Rogers Historical Museum Quilts * Arkansas

There is no doubt at all about the cultural wealth safeguarded by museums, by our own city museums. One such special museum is Rogers Historical Museum in Arkansas, which has some rather splendid and very interesting quilts for you to see. The detailed block above is from one of the quilts named the Whig Rose. (Accession 2006.76.1 Donors: Joe Milan and Elsie Steele.) Whigs in the UK were a political party supporting the accession of William and Mary in what is known as the Glorious Revolution of 1688. They are not to be confused with the Whig party in the USA. The quilt patterns of the Whig Rose and Democrat Rose are associated with the political contests between the two parties, which began in 1828 when the Democrat party was formed. This rose design is a variation of the Rose of Sharon.

It all began with a shopping trip to an antique store - how many excellent stories begin this way? In 2003 Sue Caraway purchased 15 friendship quilt blocks at a California antique store. Intrigued with the names embroidered across the center of each colorful block, she began trying to unravel their history. She found one of the names, Polena Holland, in the Social Security Death Index at RootsWeb.com; a few hours later Mrs. Caraway had tied Holland and six other names with Benton County. She posted her results on the website’s newsletter under the title of “Quilting Together a Story.” Soon more information began to flow in. She was informed that Della Crone and her cousin Polena were the grandaughters of James Albert Crone and Nancy Lydia Watts. The Crones moved with their young children from Georgia to Arkansas in 1870; Nancy died along the way and was buried in Alabama. Polena married Barry Louis Holland in 1908. Talitah “Jimmie” Crone was Polena’s mother. From Elaine Dake she learned that the folks named on the quilt blocks all lived in the Maysville area, in the western part of Benton County near the border with Oklahoma. Della Crone lived about a quarter of a mile from the Baptist church and went there every Sunday morning to light the fire in the woodstove. Such is the richness of the pieces of Life's Quilt when they are brought together this way - courtesy of your own museum. Do what you can to support them, won't you? For more information on Rogers Historical Museum click here.

York Museum Textile Collection and Textile Tour Guide On-Line

York Museum has a number of lovely textiles on-line for you to enjoy. The item above is no longer an embroidered casket, just a panel remaining from one. Which makes one wonder if, like the framed panels at Mompesson House in the cathedral close at Salisbury, it was ever made up - or if it was taken part, or fell apart and was enjoyed later as an item in its own right. The figure playing the lyre could either be a depiction of King David (in manuscripts he is depicted with a beard and clothed), or of Orpheus (usually bare top half) - but in any case the subject seems to be King Charles in masquerade!

This late 16th or early 17th century coif would have been worn by women indoors, or outdoors under a hat. Many coifs were embroidered at home and this one has a simple design, but the materials used are very luxurious and include metal threads and sequins called spangles.

I couldn't resist this item - a late 19th century child's home-made toy of The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. It is an old dance shoe filled with tiny dolls, which were commercially made, held by a home-made mother doll.

Because, when x-rayed it shows that the main support of the mother doll is a chicken's wish-bone! To see the items yourself, click here. For the Textile Collection Guide download, click here.

Not Strictly For the Birds and Some Books On The Go

In between the work on Volume II of the Micheal and Elizabeth Feller Collection (which has four times as many items as we have had in a book before!), answering around 200 emails a day (I am sorry you sometimes don't have the fast response I would love to give you), I do sometimes find time to poke my nose in a book. Currently I have 4 on the go - a bit like needlework projects. I am really enjoying Pamela Horn's book on The Victorian and Edwardian Schoolchild which is a very valuable insight into the thinking behind curricula for girls and boys. And much more about the lives of children. Some facts that amazed me: in 1870, 1 out of 3 of the population of England and Wales was under 14 years old; a half of all deaths were in children aged under 5. And the old photographs remind us that it wasn't just girls that had to stick to their knitting and stitching. Here you can see some boys from Liverpool (around 1914) being taught how to stitch so they could repair thir clothes. Note that one of the boys has no shoes or socks.

And from the same era, some little boys learning to knit - and it looks like it is engaging them.

It is an excellent book and I do commend it.

This book was a gift and I am really enjoying reading about the detective work that started with the hunch that this fabulous image was not the work of a 19th century German romantic plagiarist as it was once judged. That hunch led to the work being re-evaluated as almost certainly by Leonardi Da Vinci, and almost certainly, again, as being a portrait of one of the Sforza princesses from 15th century Milan, which possible started off life as the frontespiece to poem celebrating her betrothal. A thrilling read.

I am struggling a bit with this book - there are interesting facts tumbled about in here, which is largely what keeps me dipping back. However, the writing lacks the clarity I would have appreciated. But I mention it, since it is an insight into an important century in London't history and may interest other tenacious readers.

This book about Scapa Flow in the Orkneys, which is the war time harbour of the British Fleet, is wonderful - because it is very much a well-linked series of individual testimonies, and powerfully makes the case that the telling of individual stories add light and depth and movement to a colossal picture. And it makes me think we should do something about putting together testimonies and remembrances of stitching - I think we could set up a dedicated blog to just that - what do you think? We could call it A Gathering of Threads - or something like that?