Centennial Commemorative Handkerchief
Saturday, December 3, 2011
The plan was that today would be my last day at the museum. I was planning to work until one o'clock or so and then go back to Jim and Mariette's condo and pack up, then leave early tomorrow morning. However, Pam is planning to go to Hartford to pick up three quilts that will be in the exhibit. These three were made by Sally Palmer Field and have center medallions of commemorative handkerchiefs from the presidential campaigns of presidents Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, and Eisenhower. I would love to see these. So Pam and I have decided to stay until Wednesday when we will drive to Hartford, get the quilts, and go to the Wadsworth Antheneum to see their new exhibit, Colts & Quilts: The Civil War Remembered. We will take two cars and I will leave from there, hopefully driving another hundred miles or so before stopping for the night.
So, now I have a little more time to work on labels. Yesterday, I asked Martha, the Library Volunteer, if she could drum up any research information about the three quilt patterns in the exhibit that relate to presidents: Washington's Plume, Whig's Retreat, and Harrison's Rose. I have some information, but I'd like more. She said the only place she thought might be helpful, aside from the other sources she checked and found nothing, was the Quilter's Index. So, today I searched the index and found a lot of possible articles. I started pulling the articles from the complete set of QN (1969 to present) that the library has. Some are helpful, some are not. I will have to go through each of these myself, in the library, to see what I want and what I don't. There are more than just the quilt patterns. There are articles about political quilts, and quilts for presidents. This is going to take a while so I will do it on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, I continued tracking down commemorative fabrics, and political handkerchiefs that are in quilts in the exhibit. The most challenging are the Florence Peto quilts. She used commemorative fabrics. The center medallions are easy to track down. The other fabrics are in small areas of the quilts and I can barely see them in the photographs that we have. I think it might be an almost impossible job given I can't even see them. Perhaps when the quilts arrive, Pam can send me photographs and I can do more. I have had a pretty easy time tracking down the handkerchiefs though. The President Grant campaign handkerchief is elusive, but perhaps it will turn up.
Other than the Grant Handkerchief and more about presidential quilt patterns, I pretty much have all my research materials gathered. The Massachusetts Quilt Documentation book and the catalog from the 2000 exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum in Pennsylvania have both been very helpful. The Brandywine exhibit catalog is titled "The Fabric of Persuasion: Two Hundred Years of Political Quilts." Today I made sure I had everything scanned and printed so I could work on the labels over the weekend. I am hoping things will pull together pretty quickly. I won't have a final draft of the labels, but an initial draft should be complete.
The plan was that today would be my last day at the museum. I was planning to work until one o'clock or so and then go back to Jim and Mariette's condo and pack up, then leave early tomorrow morning. However, Pam is planning to go to Hartford to pick up three quilts that will be in the exhibit. These three were made by Sally Palmer Field and have center medallions of commemorative handkerchiefs from the presidential campaigns of presidents Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, and Eisenhower. I would love to see these. So Pam and I have decided to stay until Wednesday when we will drive to Hartford, get the quilts, and go to the Wadsworth Antheneum to see their new exhibit, Colts & Quilts: The Civil War Remembered. We will take two cars and I will leave from there, hopefully driving another hundred miles or so before stopping for the night.
So, now I have a little more time to work on labels. Yesterday, I asked Martha, the Library Volunteer, if she could drum up any research information about the three quilt patterns in the exhibit that relate to presidents: Washington's Plume, Whig's Retreat, and Harrison's Rose. I have some information, but I'd like more. She said the only place she thought might be helpful, aside from the other sources she checked and found nothing, was the Quilter's Index. So, today I searched the index and found a lot of possible articles. I started pulling the articles from the complete set of QN (1969 to present) that the library has. Some are helpful, some are not. I will have to go through each of these myself, in the library, to see what I want and what I don't. There are more than just the quilt patterns. There are articles about political quilts, and quilts for presidents. This is going to take a while so I will do it on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, I continued tracking down commemorative fabrics, and political handkerchiefs that are in quilts in the exhibit. The most challenging are the Florence Peto quilts. She used commemorative fabrics. The center medallions are easy to track down. The other fabrics are in small areas of the quilts and I can barely see them in the photographs that we have. I think it might be an almost impossible job given I can't even see them. Perhaps when the quilts arrive, Pam can send me photographs and I can do more. I have had a pretty easy time tracking down the handkerchiefs though. The President Grant campaign handkerchief is elusive, but perhaps it will turn up.
Other than the Grant Handkerchief and more about presidential quilt patterns, I pretty much have all my research materials gathered. The Massachusetts Quilt Documentation book and the catalog from the 2000 exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum in Pennsylvania have both been very helpful. The Brandywine exhibit catalog is titled "The Fabric of Persuasion: Two Hundred Years of Political Quilts." Today I made sure I had everything scanned and printed so I could work on the labels over the weekend. I am hoping things will pull together pretty quickly. I won't have a final draft of the labels, but an initial draft should be complete.
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