The museum will be open: February 25 through December 12, 2020, Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00am till 4:00pm. The museum will be closed July 4th and Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 2020.
The Quilters Hall of Fame will open their 2020 schedule with an exhibit of delight! Fiber artists from Studio Art Quilt Associates express the theme of delight and abundance in a creative way. This exhibit will be open February 25 through May 9.
The quilts in this exhibit are all inspired by solid color fabrics, feature cultural and regional distinctions and are made by members of the American Quilt Study Group. October 6 – December 12, 2020.
1984 Inductee Jinny Beyer
“A quilt is a piece of art, and for me, there can be no compromise. I want to be proud of it and I want my children and their children to be proud of it.” Jinny Beyer, Quilter’s Journal, vol. 1, no. 1 (Fall 1977)
Photo courtesy of Jinny Beyer
September of 1984 saw the induction of Jinny Beyer into The Quilters Hall of Fame (TQHF) in Arlington, Virginia. Jinny was chosen because of her many contributions to the world of quilting as a quilter, author, teacher, designer and lecturer. Her contributions are so vast that it is amazing to learn that Jinny has exclusively pieced and quilted her quilts by hand since the early 1970s. “This is my quilt to last a lifetime. I am in no hurry,” explains Jinny.
She began quilting in 1972 and her quilts were winning prizes in the late 1970s. In 1979 she began writing with her first book, Patchwork Patterns. The Quilter’s Album of Blocks and Borders followed in 1980 and The Art and Technique of Creating Medallion Style Quilts in 1982. Jinny continued publishing books through 2010.
Jinny began teaching in her home and as her reputation grew she was asked to teach classes farther away. She has taught in Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Canada and Iceland. TV and Internet appearances further extended her ability to share her methods and her color and design sense with wider audiences. Jinny has received many honors. After her induction into TQHF in 1984, she received the International Quilt Festival’s Silver Star Award in 1995, the Michael Kile Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Quilt Market in 1996, and she was voted “American Quilter” by the American Quilter’s Society in 2004. Alex Anderson and Ricky Tim’s The Quilt Show named Jinny their 2008 Quilt Legend.
Joy to you, from all of us at The Quilters Hall of Fame! And may all your bobbins be full in 2020.
This pattern is “Christmas Joy Sampler”, was designed by Fons & Porter, and was published in their magazine “Fons and Porter’s Sew Many Quilts” in 1999. The series started in the January/February issue and finished in the November/December issue.
Marianne Fons and Liz Porter were inducted into The Quilters Hall of Fame in 2019.
Christmas Joy Sampler, from a kit by Fons & Porter
Rose Kretsinger and Carrie Hall: Part Two
By Deb Geyer
Rose Kretsinger and Carrie Hall are best known for the book they co-authored, The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt in America, published in 1935. Their influences on the world of quilting earned them each the honor of being inducted into The Quilters Hall of Fame in 1985. Carrie Hall had a romantic and poetic manner of describing the history of this American art and Rose had a way of encouraging beauty and order in everyday living.
On the occasions of Rose’s birthday (November 29) and Carrie’s birthday (December 9) I’d like to share with you what I have learned about Rose and Carrie and their influences on the world of quilting. Their stories have taught me much about the world of the early 1900s and have given me a greater appreciation for the Arts and Crafts movement.
Carrie Hall
She was born Carrie Alma Hacket in Caledonia, Wisconsin on December 9, 1866. Apparently, Carrie declared that she was born with a needle in her hand. Although I could not find any solid evidence to support that, Carrie seems to have spent most of her life with a needle in her hand. Her father, a soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War fostered a love of Abraham Lincoln in Carrie. Her mother nurtured a love of books and fashion. In 1874, her family moved to a pioneer homestead in Smith County, Kansas. Despite hardships and poverty, books and quilts were considered necessities in their home. At age 7, Carrie pieced a Le Moyne Star Quilt which won first prize at the county fair. A few years later, her excellent needlework won her a subscription to Godey’s Lady’s Book, the fashion bible of the time. Carrie had no high school or college degree but her love of books and studying paid off as she was hired to teach school and was a county school superintendent for a time.
In 1889, when she was 23 years old, Carrie moved to Leavenworth, Kansas and launched a dressmaking business. Carrie had some very strong ideas about clothing and fashion which she shared in her book, From Hoopskirts to Nudity. She felt that clothes influence those who wear them, for good or for evil. She pointed out that fashion illustrations were ill proportioned and unbalanced “and the poor misguided women look at (the illustrations) and try to make themselves into their image.”
Frontpiece, From Hoopskirts to Nudity
Carrie states in her book, “Style and fashion are not synonymous terms although they are so used, indiscriminately and incorrectly. Style, in its relation to dress, is the indescribable something that is so easily recognized and so hard to define. Style is of the person and not of the clothes, for two women may wear a dress of the same design and fabric and one will look like a fashion plate and the other will look like a frump. One will be a ‘vision’ and the other a ‘sight.'”
She felt that fashions were created one size fits all and the poor victims are squeezed or stretched to fit the prevailing mode. “On the other hand, style, like beauty, is eternal and its essential qualities never change throughout the ages, and the woman who possesses this distinction will impose it upon every garment she wears.”
Carrie’s dressmaking business prospered. Known in the business world as “Madame Hall,” she employed many assistants. Her income supported a large home, two ailing husbands (successively), and it supported her habit of collecting books and memorabilia on Abraham Lincoln, Shakespeare and fashion.
After the end of World War I, Carrie began to make quilts. As the quilt revival of the 1920s grew, Carrie had made sixteen quilts. Realizing she could never make a quilt in every pattern, she began to make a sample block of every known quilt pattern at the time. The project grew until she had created well over 800 blocks. She collected even more patterns than she sewed. In the late 1920s the availability of ready-made clothing and the beginning of the Great Depression, caused her dressmaking business to decline. It was at that point Carrie began a career as a quilt lecturer. Dressed in a colonial costume, she presented programs about quilt blocks, quilt making and quilt history, all illustrated with her extensive block collection. She became a prominent club woman, quilt authority, lecturer and quilt collector.
April 10, 1932, Carrie visited Rose Kretsinger at her home in Emporia. She had an idea of a book she wanted to write and she wanted to ask Rose for pictures of quilts for the book. However, a week later Carrie wrote a letter to Rose, in which Carrie describes her vision of a three-volume set of books of which Rose would write the last. Carrie proposed to share one-third of the royalties with Rose and Carrie would handle all the business matters.
A single book was published three years later, in September of 1935. Carrie wrote the first two parts and Rose wrote the final part. Carrie dedicated her parts to “Quilt Lovers- Everywhere: World Without End.” Carrie’s first part covers the history of quilts peppered generously with poetry and prose, showing quilts in a romantic light. She writes about the romance of quilts, the quilting bee, the quilt’s place in art, and how to make quilts. Photos of the quilt blocks Carrie had made are numbered and named. This made the book the first comprehensive index to quilt patterns, their names and their history. In Section Two, Carrie provides photos of completed quilts- antique and modern. Twelve of the quilt photos are from Rose Kretsinger’s collection, made either by Rose or by her mother (To read more about Rose’s contributions to the book, see Part I).
World War II found Carrie dealing with serious financial difficulties. To address shortages in money she turned all of her property over to her creditors, with the exception of her library. With the money raised she was able to care for Mr. Hall who was in poor health and to begin a new life for herself. She began to manufacture and sell playtime and character dolls of historical figures, she prided herself on the detail and craftsmanship of the dolls. She ran this business under the name “The Handicraft Shop” and was quite successful.
At the age of 88, on July 8, 1955, Carrie Hall’s needle was stilled forever. I wonder if she died with a needle in her hand.
Selected Quilts: Click on the quilt titles to see photos on the Spencer Museum of Art website.
George Washington Bi-Centennial Quilt– 1932. Made in Leavenworth, Kansas, the label on this quilt reads: “This quilt is an adaptation of a design by Mary Evangeline Walker. George Washington Bi-Centennial Quilt—the center is a framed silhouette surrounded by two rows of hatchets. The row of cherry trees next and the outer row next represents Washington Pavement. Made by Mrs. Carrie A. Hall, Maplehurst, Leavenworth Kansas. For sale—Price $59.00.”
Cross Patch Quilt– c.1928-1935. This design was developed by Hall from a crossword puzzle.
Brackman, Barbara. “Carrie Hall: Entrepreneur.” Women’s Work: Quilts, Making a Living Making Quilts (blog). Womensworkquilt.blogspot.com, March 11, 2018.
Brackman, Barbara, Jennie A Chinn, Gayle R Davis, Terry Thompson, Sara Reimer Farley, Nancy Hornback. Kansas Quilts & Quilters. Lawrence, Kansas, University of Kansas Press, 1993.
Hall, Carrie. From Hoopskirts to Nudity: A Review of the Follies and Foibles of Fashion, 1866-1936. Caldwell, ID: The Caxton Printers, Ltd.
Hall, Carrie A., and Rose G . Kretsinger. The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt in America. Caldwell, ID: The Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1935.
Hammill, Diane. “Carrie Hall.” The Quilters Hall of Fame: 42 Masters. Minneapolis, MN: Voyageur Press, 2011.
Havig, Bettina. Carrie Hall Blocks: Over 800 Historical Patterns from the Collections of the Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas. Paducah, KY: American Quilter’s Society, 1999.
Rose Kretsinger and Carrie Hall: Part One
By Deb Geyer
Rose Kretsinger and Carrie Hall are best known for the book they co-authored, The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt in America, published in 1935. Their influences on the world of quilting earned them each the honor of being inducted into The Quilters Hall of Fame in 1985. Carrie Hall had a romantic and poetic manner of describing the history of this American art and Rose had a way of encouraging beauty and order in everyday living.
On the occasions of Rose’s birthday (November 29) and Carrie’s birthday (December 9) I’d like to share with you what I have learned about Rose and Carrie and their influences on the world of quilting. Their stories have taught me much about the world of the early 1900s and have given me a greater appreciation for the Arts and Crafts movement.
Rose Kretsinger
Rose Francis Good was born November 29, 1886. Growing
up in Abilene, Kansas, Rose was surrounded by creative people. Her mother
painted china. Her grandfather made pottery and built carriages. Her
grandmother was a quilt maker. An Emporia Gazette article reported Rose as
saying her grandmother taught her to make her first stitches on a quilt, but
she said that she abandoned the craft as soon as the lessons were over. However
disinterested she may have been in quilting, her early years were full of creativity
and adults that encouraged her creativity.
After graduating from high school, Rose went to
Chicago to work on a degree in design at the Art Institute of Chicago. The
program at the Art Institute placed emphasis on the Arts and Crafts movement
which promoted traditional craftsmanship using simple forms based on nature.
Followers of the arts and crafts movement sought to create a style based on
simplicity of design, quality of craftsmanship, attention to detail and
integration of art into everyday life. Rose graduated with honors from this
program. Over the next six years she designed fabric for Marshal Field Department
Store, designed jewelry, taught at the Art Institute, and studied Architecture
in Europe for a year.
At the age of 28, Rose retired from her design career, moved to Emporia, Kansas and married William Kretsinger, a well-to-do widower who was an attorney as well as a rancher. They raised two children, William and Mary Amelia. Rose kept busy adding beauty to their family’s home and the ordinary objects it contained. She did cross stitch, petit point, embroidery, and appliqué. During the Colonial Revival, Rose took up quilting at the age of forty. That year, 1926, Rose made three quilts, Snow Crystals, Democrat Rose, and Antique Rose. While they were all based on traditional patterns, Rose’s artistic skill and professional competence gave the quilts a distinct sophistication.
As she continued her quilting, Rose ignored commercial trends, focusing instead on quilts of the past. The patterns and kits of the day resulted in a predictable product; a quality Rose criticized. “Women are depending more upon the printed pattern sheet to save time and labor. These, having been used time and again, often become very tiresome.” Rather than buying her patterns from magazines, she found most of her ideas in old quilts, borrowing family heirlooms from friends and sketching museum quilts. Her quilts honor the accomplishments of those who came before her and are evidence that her philosophy to study the work of others was practically applied to her own work.
The success of Rose’s quilts lies in her reworking of
the old designs. With her design background she knew how to reorganize compositions
to focus attention, how to use color and value, and how to use quilting to add
line. Rose’s unique combination of traditional standards and modern design
earned her local and national fame as she won prizes in contests from Lyon
County, Kansas to New York City. Rose did all the hand appliqué work on her
quilts. She designed and laid out the quilting but hired others to do the hand quilting.
Rose would occasionally accept payment for quilt designs, but she did not have a business. Her daughter Mary said, “All she did was for the joy of doing it. She had unlimited energies for passing patterns and help around to other quilters.”
For her part in The Romance of The American Quilt, Rose wrote Part III, “Quilting and Quilting Designs”. Rose dedicated this section to her mother, Anna Gleissner Good. This section includes a short history of quilting and goes into detail on quilting designs. She expressed discontent with the commercialization of quilting in her day, which she felt lowered its sincerity and individuality as a needle art. Rose promotes quilting as valuable for the display of individual taste and self-expression.
“It has been said by different disinterested people: ‘Why spend so much time and labor making new quilts and worrying about designs when you already have a number which are never used?’ Perhaps it is for the same reason which prompts the planting of flowers in the alley, back of the garden fence, or the landscaping of our gardens in places seen only by a few; because of our love for beauty and regard for order in everyday living. It is in us and must come forth and become a material artistic expression.”
Rose suffered a paralyzing stroke sometime before her death in 1963. During the 15 years before her death, Rose had spread Paradise Garden, the last quilt she finished, on her bed only on special occasions. But when she was confined to bed after her stroke, she asked her daughter Mary to put it over her. The quilt was needed to bring her joy. Rose had written, “We are always well repaid in making something lovely, for ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever.'” Rose died June 23, 1963 in Wichita, Kansas, at the age of 76.
In 1971 her daughter donated twelve quilts made by Rose to the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas.
Selected Quilts: Click on the quilt titles to see photos on the Spencer Museum of Art website.
Indiana Wreath, 1927- This quilt was inspired by a quilt used for the frontispiece of the early editions of Marie Webster’s book, Quilts: Their Story and How to Make Them, published in 1915. Made by Elizabeth J. Hart, the original Indiana Wreath quilt has inspired many excellent quilters to create their own interpretations of the challenging design.
Orchid Wreath, 1928- Rose’s daughter, Mary, said she saw a Coca Cola poster with orchids on it in a local soda fountain. She asked her mother to make an orchid quilt for her bed. Rose asked for the poster and used it as a design source for the quilt. This is the only quilt that Rose made with an original design and was included in the exhibit America’s 100 Best Quilts of the 20th Century at the International Quilt Festival in 1999.
Paradise Garden, 1946- Rose designed and appliqued this masterpiece, inspired by a quilt made in 1857 by Arsinoe Kelsey Bowen, which was illustrated in Ruth Finley’s book, Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women Who Made Them. This was Rose’s last quilt.
Selected Reading:
Brackman, Barbara. “Rose Kretsinger.” The Quilters Hall of Fame: 42 Masters. Minneapolis, MN: Voyageur Press, 2011.
Brackman, Barbara, Jennie A Chinn, Gayle R Davis, Terry Thompson, Sara Reimer Farley, Nancy Hornback. Kansas Quilts & Quilters. Lawrence, Kansas, University of Kansas Press, 1993.
Carter, Hazel. “Evolution and New Revelation: The Garden Quilt Design.” Blanket Statements, American Quilt Study Group, no. 71 (Winter 2003).
Gregory, Jonathan. “The Joy of Beauty: The Creative Life and Quilts of Rose Kretsinger.” Uncoverings, American Quilt Study Group, Vol 28 (2007).
Hall, Carrie A., and Rose G. Kretsinger. The Romance of the Patchwork
Quilt in America. Caldwell, ID: The Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1935.
“Rose Kretsinger, Appliqué Artist.” Quilter’s Newsletter
Magazine, no. 97 (December 1977) (Interview with daughter Mary Kretsinger
of Emporia, Kansas.).
Shankel, Carol, ed. American Quilt Renaissance: Three Women Who
Influenced Quiltmaking in the Early 20th Century. Tokyo: Kokusai Art,
1997.
Opening February 27, 2018 at The Quilters Hall of Fame
Arnold Savage:
My Family’s Life in Textiles
One family, five generations, ten quilters, twenty quilts
Arnold Savage is a renowned award-winning quilter who predominately uses vintage fabrics in his works. These vintage fabrics were collected by himself and his ancestors of the previous 4 generations. The mixtures of these fabrics can be quite stunning as seen in Cockatiel, shown above. Cockatiel was begun by Mary Alice Hegy in the 1920s – 1930s. The piece was passed on to her sister, Mary Madonna Savish who finished the piecing and began the quilting. Mary Madonna’s son, Arnold Savage, finished the piece in 1978. Fabrics included span from the 1880s to the 1930s.
Another beauty included in the exhibit is a 69″ square Ocean Waves quilt utilizing a very colorful collection of scraps from the 1860s – 1890s, set against a red background. This one was made by Arnold’s Grand Uncle, John Albert Hegy, c. 1890.
And lastly, I will mention Feathered Stars and Roses made by Arnold’s Great, Great Grandmother, Gertrude Hegner Fisher. Pieced of red, white, and blue solid colored cottons, it is beautifully and closely quilted, 14 stitches to the inch, in crosshatching, straight line, rosettes, feather wreaths and and an exquisitely running feather vine border that turns the corners nicely, and is evenly spaced on all four sides. This one is dated c.1850.
Please stop in to see this beautiful collection of quilts! The exhibit will be open February 27, 2018 through May 12 and will be open Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10am – 4pm.
Deb Geyer
Executive Director, The Quilters Hall of Fame
And Still We Rise
Honoree Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi’s exhibit, “And Still We Rise,” opened this week at the Spencer Museum of Art on the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence, KS. The opening coincided with the first ever National African-American Quilt Convention hosted by the African-American Quilt Museum and Textile Academy. While my schedule prevented me from attending the Convention, John and I were fortunate to be able to attend the exhibition opening last night. The exhibit is outstanding! It will be on display through September 17, 2017. The quilt exhibit celebrates the history and experiences of the African-American community in North America. It is a “must see.” Thank you, Dr. Mazloomi and all of the quilters whose works are in the exhibit.
Deborah Divine
President, The Quilters Hall of Fame
