Say My Name: "In War Time, 1863," by Jane A. Stickle

Good morning, Quilty Peeps!  Today's post is another in a series exploring and organizing my thoughts around the many quilts I hope to make "Someday," in order to deter myself from wasting time chasing the so-called Squirrel Projects that sometimes distract me.  The idea is that, before I purchase a new pattern or project materials, I'll consult my new Future Quilt Plans page at the top of my blog and decide whether I really want to invest the time in that new distraction project, or whether I really would be happier digging into one of my Bucket List quilts instead.  It has recently dawned on me that I probably won't live long enough to make every single quilt that strikes my fancy, so I want to be more intentional about which quilts I admire from a distance and which ones I choose to make for myself.

"In War Time, 1863" by Jane A. Stickle

"In War Time, 1863" 80.25 x 80.25 Original Antique Quilt by Jane A. Stickle

So much has been written about this iconic quilt.  You can see it in person at the Bennington Museum in Bennington, Vermont (check first before traveling as it's not always on display) and the best history of the quilt maker Jane A. Stickle can be found in the Summer 2013 issue of the Walloomsack Review on the museum's website here.  I know some of you have already made one or more versions of this quilt and others of you have it on your own Wanna-Make lists, but you're likely calling the original antique quilt by a different name.

Jane A. Stickle Named Her Quilt "In War Time, 1863."  NOT "Dear Jane"

One of the many remarkable things about Stickle's quilt is that, very unusually for the period, her quilt includes a label that names her quilt "In War Time, 1863" as well as the number of pieces in the quilt (5,602) and her name, Jane A. Stickle.  The "Dear Jane Quilt" moniker derives from a 1996 book by Brenda Manges Papadakis in which the author extols the virtues of the Stickle quilt and presents self-drafted line drawing reproductions of the blocks interspersed with extensive imaginary correspondence with the quilt maker.  Papadakis was so smitten with the Stickle quilt that she was inspired to learn everything she could about the quilt maker, the world she inhabited, and what was happening around her during the time she made the quilt.  However, Jane Stickle was an ordinary woman of declining fortunes living in times when ordinary women's lives tended to go undocumented.  We know she was childless, we know she was married but living apart from her husband at one point in their marriage when the census listed him as living with some other, much younger wife.  Later censuses show Jane living with her husband again, filing for bankruptcy, and ending her life as a ward of the state.  "In War Time, 1863" was a project she devised to pass time when she was bedridden.  

Papadakis' book Dear Jane: The Two Hundred Twenty-Five Patterns from the 1863 Jane A. Stickle Quilt  and the many classes she taught have been instrumental in sharing Stickle's exquisite masterpiece with hundreds of thousands of quilters worldwide, both challenging and encouraging readers to attempt reproductions and variations based on the original.  If Papadakis had not written about and popularized this quilt, I probably wouldn't even know it existed.  And, to her credit, Papadakis herself refers to Jane's quilt reverentially as "The Quilt" and only nicknames her students and their quilts as "Baby Janes."  The quilt only became known as "The Dear Jane Quilt" colloquially subsequent to the publication of the Papadakis book as quilters around the world fell in love with the quilt and began the journey of making “Dear Jane” quilts themselves.  

Which is all well and good, except what would that look like if Jane Sickle had been a male artist, working in a highly esteemed medium like oil painting rather than the oft-denigrated “women’s work” of needle craft?

The Dear Leonardo Portrait

The "Dear Leonardo" Portrait (instead of Mona Lisa or La Giaconda) by Leonardo Da Vinci?

My beloved Leonardo,

         I dreamed of you with longing today whilst working on my replica of The Portrait.  Who was this woman you painted, and what did she mean to you?  She must have sat in your presence for hours on end as you painted, close enough to breathe the same air, staring directly into your smoldering eyes and inhaling the intoxicating scent of your manhood.  Was she your mother, as some have supposed, the wife of your father's merchant friend Giaconda, or your own secret paramour, smirking at you playfully?  Perhaps she tried to keep a straight face as was customary in portraits of the time, but your ribald stories and dirty jokes broke down her maidenly reserve.  You lived through such an amazing time, what with the Renaissance and the Medici family's campaign to Make Florence Great Again...  Oh Leonardo, if only we were not separated by the centuries, I know you and I would be lovers as I am truly your soul mate now that I am copying your painting and thereby gaining access to your very soul!  I long to lick your paint brushes clean and will never stop searching for more of your precious paintings.

                                                     Your Playmate,

                                                      Rebecca Grace

Now seriously -- Isn't that WEIRD when it’s me writing letters to Leonardo Da Vinci instead of Brenda Papadakis writing letters to Jane Sickle?  Writing to "My beloved Jane" and signing off "your playmate Brenda" comes straight out of the Papadakis book.   (There are no sexual overtones in Papadakis’ letters to Jane, however.  I got carried away with my letter to Leonardo…)

Throwback Thursday: Quilter's Newsletter Magazine, Nov/Dec 1986

A former member of our Charlotte Quilter's Guild who is no longer quilting was cleaning out her home recently and graciously decided to gift her entire stash of Quilter's Newsletter Magazines to a current guild member.  Her issues go from 1986 through the late 'nineties, long before I began quilting, so I snapped at the chance to do a little "time traveling" through these back issues.  Quilter's Newsletter Magazine has been my all-time favorite over the years, and I was a subscriber from the early 2000s until the magazine folded at the end of 2016.  

QNM Issues from the 2000s, When I Began Subscribing

I'm interested in the patterns that were published in earlier issues of the magazine, but I'm also interested in reading the articles and studying the advertisements to learn how the art, craft and industry around quilt making has evolved over the past 33 years.  

And so, for today's Throwback Thursday, we are traveling back to November/December of 1986!

QNM Issue 187, Nov/Dec 1986

When this magazine was published, I was a thirteen-year-old eighth grader whose primary goal in life was trying to get my spiral-permed hair to stick straight up in the air with hairspray.  Although my junior high mandated one semester each of co-ed shop class and co-ed home economics, all I got out of that was a little wooden stand that I built for VHS tapes -- and I learned how to cook scrambled eggs while dodging the airborn eggs that the boys were throwing at one another across the classroom.  

In the wake of Second Wave feminism, the traditional home economics curriculum had all but disappeared from the schools, and even though my mom did a lot of garment sewing when I was growing up, she worked full-time outside the home and, for one reason or another, didn't pass that skill set along to me or to my sisters.  I think the prevailing idea in the '80s was that it was backwards or anti-feminist to teach young girls to sew, since our generation was expected to go out and crush it in the business world instead of staying at home.  (Consider this article from the Dec. 30, 1986 New York Times, in which researchers studying data from the 1980 Census concluded that women's roles and social norms had not been in agreement since the 1950s).

That seems to be a key generational difference between those who began quilting in the '70s and '80s versus those who have taken up quilting more recently.  The earlier generation of quilters already possessed basic sewing skills and equipment that they could transfer to their new quilting hobby, whereas a typical beginning quilter today might not own a sewing machine or has never even threaded a needle when she or he first develops the itch to make a quilt.

Baby Boom (1987) and Mr. Mom (1986), available on Amazon here

Two films that were in theaters around the time this issue of QNM was on the newsstand were Baby Boom (1987) and Mr. Mom (1986), conveniently packaged as a Double Feature available for streaming on Amazon here.  I vividly remember watching both of these movies that idealized the new phenomenon of the "working mom."  I had no idea at the time that this seismic cultural shift in American family life was concurrent with a renewed interest in the traditional women's craft of quilting.  Despite the quilting Renaissance that was kicked off in the United States by the Bicentennial celebrations of 1976, I don't remember seeing any representations back then of quilters in popular culture.  This intrigues me, and I wonder who those women were who were resurrecting the art of hand quilting while Diane Keaton was building a baby food conglomerate and home economics classes were disappearing from the schools.  Did the new quilters of the '80s and '90s identify as feminists, or were they actively rejecting feminism by embracing and romanticizing the traditional needlework that women had engaged in during "simpler times," or do you feel that the renewed appeal of quilting as a creative outlet had no relation at all to the changes in American family life that were happening at the same time? 

If you were making quilts back in 1986 while I was still in the bathroom playing with hairspray, I'd love to hear from you in the comments.  

What brought you to quilting?  Were you a homemaker or working outside the home at that time?  Did you feel liberated by the new possibilities available to women outside the home, or did you feel that your traditional identity, values, and skills were being devalued?  Did you then, or do you now in retrospect, see any connection between the changing opportunities and expectations for women that were happening culturally and the pleasure that you and other women found in quilt making during the '80s and '90s?

These are the things that stood out to me from the Nov/Dec 1986 issue of Quilter's Newsletter:

• The ads are all for polyester batting
• No mention of rotary cutting anywhere -- all of the patterns have templates instead.  That surprised me, because I know that Olfa introduced the first rotary cutters for garment sewing in 1979.  Seven years later, quilters were still tracing templates onto cereal boxes and cutting out every patch with a scissor?!  I'll be interested to discover when the first ad or article for rotary cutting finally shows up in QNM as I read through the decades of back issues!
• None of the ads have websites listed, and many of them instruct readers to mail in $5.50 or however much with a SASE (Self-Addressed, Stamped Envelope).  I had forgotten all about SASEs!
• There was an interesting article about the difficulty that quilters in 1986 were having locating the fabric colors they wanted.  That seems bizarre to me, spoiled by local quilt shops that carry full ranges of solid colors and everything from the traditional Civil War reproduction prints to Aunt Grace to Kaffe Fassett and beyond -- and if I can't find what I'm looking for at my LQS, there's always the Internet to find that elusive out-of-print fabric that I need to finish my project!
• All of the quilts in this issue appear to be hand quilted.   I saw no mention of machine quilting at all, many ads for different styles of hand quilting frames, hoops, and thimbles, and several photos of women quilting by hand in articles as well as in advertisements.  There was one small 1/6 page black and white ad for a "Nustyle Table Frame for Professional Quilting" that depicted a domestic Juki sewing machine mounted onto a small frame to do narrow width pantograph quilting, instructing readers to "Call or send 22 cent stamp for literature and prices."  Remember when a postage stamp only cost 22 cents?!
• Another thing that stood out to me is that the quilters who are pictured in this 1986 issue all look so YOUNG -- three appeared to be in their late twenties or thirties, two who may have been in their forties or fifties, and one woman who might have been early sixties.  And they really WERE young, because 1986 predates the ubiquity of Botox...  Just sayin'.
• The articles and patterns in this issue of QNM are still depicting very traditional quilts in terms of their design and color.  However, several of the quilts in the QNM Readers' Quilt Show section are starting to look more experimental and contemporary:

Readers' Quilt Show: More Experimental Quilts Made by QNM Readers

Traditional Quilt Patterns Written by QNM Staff

That was an interesting discovery -- I would have thought that readers' quilts would have been more traditional and the editorial content would have been introducing new aesthetics, new techniques, and innovation.  Instead, at least from this issue, it seems that the magazine was still pretty traditional in 1986 even as its readers were starting to explore new possibilities in quilt making.

Okay, so no actual quilting got done today, and I got off on quite the tangent with this one back issue of QNM.  Uff da!  Tomorrow is a whole new day -- hopefully one that involves loading an outreach top on the longarm and quilting it!