Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Quilting trends

Some of the favorite patterns in the 30's and 40's were fans, dresden plate, wedding ring and hexagons (grandmother's flower garden). It is amazing that dresden plate and hexagons are again very popular. They almost disappeared for 50 years. In the
50's little quilting was done. Its reemerged around the time of the bicentennial.
It slowly regained momentum and stores devoted to quilting, magazines, and guilds began to spring up.
There were fabric fads and pattern fads, but little return to those popular patterns of the 30's and 40's. Quilting changed a lot from hand piecing and quilting to machines to do it for us. During the late 80's and 90's there was an expansion of what constituted a quilt....improv piecing, embellishment, art quilts.
Now there is a new generation of quilters...internet savvy, looking to a fresh approach to fabric, patterns and styles. Bright, clear colors, use of solids, more graphic prints and those old favorites dresden plate and hexagons.
Even the desire to use scraps up and/or use an improv style to do it.
I have a now out-of-print book Beautiful Quilts: Art Deco by Jenni Dobson, who I think is English. Her premise is that most of those popular 30's/40's patterns were a reflection of Art Deco stlye popular between the two world wars. There are great modern variations for the popular patterns and patterns to make them, but not any completed quilts (just drawings). I suspect that it did not sell well without pictures of actual quilts. If you ever have the chance to see it enjoy the inspiration.
The upshot of all this babbling is I have started cutting pieces for a dresden plate quilt. Where this will go is totally unknown.

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