Real Log Cabins part 1

So, you've seen one ratty old quilt type log cabin. Here's the real deal. This is the Iddings Log Cabin, supposedly the oldest log cabin in Miami County, Ohio on its original location.

I'm not sure who did a survey, but we'll get into that in another blog post. Some of the siding has been replaced and other repairs have been made, but this is the original configuration on the original foundations. In 1804, Benjamin Iddings brought his wife and six of his ten children to this location in Newtown Township and built this house to hold them all. It's not large, maybe about 20' x 12. As is usual, there is one room downstairs and a second upstairs, although I'm not sure if the second floor is divided. Usually they were, both for sleeping space for children and servants (if they had any, or hired hands) as well as for storage of grain, wool, foodstuffs and so on. This is the front of the house.

This is the back porch. Notice how the columns are simply logs which were put into place. Windows were expensive and quite often they started out as oiled pieces of leather or untanned hides and were replaced with glass when the family could afford them. Even so, you didn't want to have a lot of window as windows let in cold as well as light.





Here, you can see the east side of the house. The cabin stands on the Bruckner Nature Center property just off Horseshoe Bend Road in Troy, almost to Pleasant Hill...or maybe it is still West Milton at that point.

The Cabin is open during the summer for interpretation and for various activities.



Keep in mind the layout of this house and the porches. Quite often, these lean-to porches were turned into additional rooms, often a kitchen off the back as the family got more money and time to make their home larger.

The back door is about 5' high. I have to incline my head slightly as I go in and I'm 5'4". The average height of a man in the American Revolutionary war was 5' 8", so even they would have had to duck a little. Again, less opportunity for heat to get out, and unwanted things/people to get in.




We often think of log houses or log cabins as not being squared off, but most of the ones in the east and midwest were squared with a broad ax and cut to interlink. Notice the chinking--the mortar between the logs. Originally, this would have been made with a clay/grass and sometimes animal hair mixture and it would have to be replaced as time went on. At some point, this concrete mixture was put in...I think probably recently, perhaps in 1976 or in 2006 when the cabin was restored/repaired.

I would be a little concerned about this as concrete often holds moisture which would cause the logs to rot, but hopefully someone used a mixture which doesn't allow it to be wet.

Log Cabin Quilt

A couple of years ago, I won the contents of a drawer in an auction. I saw some trim in the pile as the drawer of the dresser was unceremoniously dumped out on the ground. This tattered old quilt fell with the mixed lot of junk.

Since the SAQA trunk show was supposed to show a connection between quilt and art as well as the roots in the folk art of quilting, I had thought I was going to take one of the ratty blocks apart and use it in my piece. Maybe paint it or something.

The quilt dates from about 1860 - 1880, but is probably in the earlier range. The set is called "light and dark." It uses the traditional red "fireplaces" or "chimney." The logs are in various shades of shirting and dress prints, double pinks, chrome greens, the average every day scraps of clothing. The light part is muslin or small print shirtings.

Stained and holey, there really isn't much save to it.

The border of the quilt was a sawtooth edge with what I think was a black check. The black, being more acidic, just disappeared leaving a gauze like pattern where the threads are gone.





I think Lemmie is happy that I haven't cut it up yet. He's claimed it for his very own.

Damage to One of My Quilts in a Gallery

Some of you may remember this piece that I did for Dijanne Cevaal's "K.I.S.S." challenge. I used a white sateen on black Kona, outline stitched in metallic thread, then bobbin stitched and hand stitched using perle cotton.


Earlier this month, I submitted it and three other of my quilts to a gallery which usually does fine arts about 4 miles from my house.
I didn't think anything about the fact that I hadn't put any of my quilts in a bag, after all, it was just down the street and I turned them in in the afternoon of the last day. The gallery owner said that I was the last to bring them in.

Yesterday, I stopped in on the way back home....and discovered that all of the white areas had turquoise color transfer. One of the more traditional (and larger quilts) in the show was made with multicolor batiks and the back of it was ....turquoise batik. It was the only quilt in the show that I could see that had this color in it, so I am assuming that they laid that quilt on my smaller quilt (it's 20" x 20") and that the color had to have transferred by just rubbing.....at least I'm hoping there wasn't any moisture involved.

Hree's what it looked like originally (although it was taken with my other camera and the lighting isn't the same). You can see, this is pretty noticeable.

So....now I'm left wondering what to do with it. I don't dare wash it because I'm afraid that the perle cottons would bleed.

From now on, all quilts I submit ANYWHERE will have their own bags with labels sewn in and also with tyvek labels backed with a piece of the major fabric in the quilt and on the drawstring.

I'm thinking that perhaps I can use some shiva paintstiks on white in either wite or silver, or a combination.....Any other ideas? What do you think?

SAQA'S This is a Quilt entry finished and sent

This is a photo of a Great Spangled Fritillary I took in June of 2010. I loved the rich colors of this butterfly, even though it is a common one in the Northeast and Midwest. I've been meaning to do something with it since I took the photo.

I have to say that I have a little Devil or Angel who periodically sits on my shoulder and gives me a shove. Her name is Vivien Zepf. Vivien has strongly urged me to do items to enter into SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) exhibitions. Hmm.

Currently, SAQA is collecting little quilts that they will mat and put into a trunk show. The title is "This is a Quilt" and the goal is to explain art quilts and yet connect them with the folk art tradition. Why do we choose to do this type of art? A question I often ask myself as art quilts are not often accepted as "fine art" but are often classified as "craft" (with a negative connotation).

I struggle with this because I love to paint and indeed many of my art quilts have painting in them if they aren't done completely in paint. If I painted the image, I would be finished much more quickly than if I quilted the same image. I wouldn't have to quilt and bind and hand sew in a hanging sleeve. I would just have to wait until it dries, maybe slap a coat of varnish on it, and frame it. Much easier than quilting and certainly a ton less time consuming. Paintings regularly get into shows easier and also command higher prices. Phyllis Cullen has written a blog post on this topic (Is it Art ) . Hopefully the pieces put together with their artist statements will help explain quilts as art. In fact, the matting will make the point even stronger.

First, I selected a piece of rust dyed fabric as it seemed very similar to the background of the quilt. Then I drew the butterfly freehand with Derwent Inktense pencils. I think I need to learn how to get the pencil darker as it just doesn't get the richness that I know these pencils are capable of.

Here's what I ended up with. It is more of a collage as when I drew it, all I could think of is the 19th century specimen collections. I used specialty papers that I layered and wrote the Latin name for the Great Spangled Fritillary (Speyeria cybele cybele) and burned the edges of the mulberry paper. This is partly because most people who think "quilts" wouldn't dream of having paper on their quilts, yet paper IS a fiber. the green ribbon is a wired organdy ribbon which came wrapped around a pile of fat quarters. I'm sorry I can't show you a close up as the only ones I took ended up being a bit blurry (it WAS early morning and I am decidedly NOT a morning person.) The other writing is in Pigma pen and is "Great Spangled Fritillary." The long whitish piece on the left is on a scrap of cotton grabbed from the waste basket at our quilting group and reads "Lepidoptera" the name of the order of Butterflies and moths.

I outline quilted the butterfly in a metallic/rust/dark brown thread and closely quilted the background to make it lay pretty flat. Why? Well, the reason I think I like quilting images is texture. Lots of texture. You can get texture in oilpaintings by impasto and a palette knife...but that's about it. With quilting the whole world is opened up with texture: the choice of fabrics, what you do with the fabrics (fraying, manipulating, etc.), the quilting itself, and then the myriad of embellishments such as beads, buttons, sticks, metal. You name it and you can do it. Art Quilting, unlike traditional quilting opens the world of materials. Things you wouldn't dream of incorporating into a traditional quilt all of a sudden becomes fodder for an art quilt.

I debated doing this piece for a while after I saw Terry Hartzell's Luna moth at the November SAQA show. I intended to do something with my photo, but Terry has done a couple of pieces with rust dyed fabric and a Luna moth as well as a Buckeye Butterfly. Was I using her idea? Did it influence me too much? I decided that that concept was ridiculous as many people do similar topics and even use similar materials, but each individuals vision creates a different piece. Take a look at Terry's work here and you can see how different they are....and hers are down right gorgeous!

It feels good to get something done and out on the road.

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Sweet Pea Escapee

Sweet peas which escaped from an early 19th century farmstead. Thoughts of warmer times.

What's Stopping You?

Have you ever had a time when no matter what you THINK you want to do, you're stymied? Blocked? Thwarted? I'm kind of there. The sad thing is what is stopping me is that my studio (sewing room, whatever you want to call it) is an utter disaster area and it is so bad (and I'm not exaggerating) I can't stand to be in there...

The floor is covered. I can't get to the thread cabinet for all the stuff which has fallen off the back of my sewing cabinet. The table set up as an ironing surface is, no kidding, piled three feet high.

So...I'm spending valuable quilting time picking up and sorting and throwing out....all because I did not live by the addage "If it is in your hand, put it in it's rightful place." Dumb.


Sometimes we let these curves get us because we are afraid to succeed...or that we don't think we really can so we throw up roadblocks and create self-fulfilling prophecies. Sometimes it is one of a myriad of other fears, demons or whatever.

I keep on thinking about something that another art quilter said to me about Natalya Aikens (ooh..is this quilter gossip???? Hmm). She said that Natalya is really busy and has very little time to create, but she goes into her studio and spends maybe a half an hour or so at a time and manages to carve out time and create lots in that small amount. Like many of us, Natalya wears many hats and is pulled in a variety of ways...but she does it.

Which makes me think. Her studio is probably set up so that when she leaves, she has things neat and tidy and all things set up preparatory for her return...the next step's tools and needs laid out. Perhaps she even writes herself a note as to what comes next..in a quilting journal. By doing this, she records her progress and creates a history of the project she's working on.

But I'm guessing. I think what I have described is what I'm going to try to do....as soon as I dig out the mess. Do take a look at the hotlink I put on Natalya's name. I don't know her at all, but her work is fantastic. So...think of it this way, we have some curves in the road, but eventually, it opens up to a straight shot...at least it does on this road.

(Horseshoe Bend Rd., Pleasant Hill, OH...yes, it IS a horse-shoe bend on the Stillwater River and it, like so many rivers in Ohio, is on a deeply cut area, so the road switches back in order to cross it).

Collage+cloth+quilt

I purchased Judi Warren Blaydon's collage+cloth+quilt: create innovative quilts form photo inspirations (C&T Publishing, 2010. 95 pages. $27.95. ISBN: 978-1-57120-8507) the other day. At first, I was supremely underwhelmed. I felt that the book could have been largely handled as an article in a magazine.

Blaydon explores the use of photomontage in quiltmaking. In other words, slicing and dicing photos and fabrics to make quilts. I took another look at the volume however, and decided that it couldn't really be handled in a magazine article. I was still disappointed though that it didn't cover other methods of using photographs in quilts, even as collages.

Blaydon covers how to choose photographs and how she uses elements from several photographs to combine making a new image. She doesn't hit hard on the elements of design, but then she's not writing a design book but teaching people how to use photomontage in the world of quilts. She gives some handy tips on how to lay them out, seaming, using a window to isolate elements and other tricks.

She has copious examples of work from her students. Some of them are quite successful. Others are a bit ho-hum, but that's OK. If you're interested in this type of work, it is worth a look. Amazon has the click-on opportunity to look at several pages plus the table of contents. It is presently available new from about $20; and used from $14.98. Take a look
here and explore.
http://www.amazon.com/Collage-Cloth-Quilt-Innovative-Inspirations/dp/157120850X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295834860&sr=8-1