Here's our final look at the wonderful Maine Quilts 2025. This special display of miniatures by the late Dorothy Bosselman were on loan from the collection of the New England Quilt Museum. Dorothy began making miniature versions of historic Amish quilts in the 1990s, and hand quilting these small treasures. This Lone Star mini measures just 12" x 14", so imagine the size of those pieces and Dorothy's meticulous hand stitch! Her border quilting is called "double rodding" and is a hallmark of traditional Amish quilts.
It was a challenge to photograph these minis because they were mounted on canvas display boards and hard to shoot straight-on. I love the dusty purples in her Sunshine and Shadow, 10" square.
Square-in-a-Square is a traditional Amish design. Clearly it was one of Dorothy's favorites to piece and quilt. It's one of mine, too. Many years ago I took a class with Catherine Anthony on making Amish-style quilts. This was the pattern we used in class, and could fill the center with any number of designs such as squares-on-point or bars. The piecing was simple and left plenty of space to showcase the quilting. We learned to make traditional templates for our own "pumpkin seeds" and "tear drops" which became complex cables, feathers, and wreaths when we duplicated them and marked them on our quilt tops. You can see some of those designs in Dorothy's work, too. Hers are just 15" square.
This is not one of Dorothy's quilts, but I included it with the miniatures because that is pretty tiny piecing! This is Kimberly Minns' entry in her local guild's challenge. The group used wrapping paper designs as the basis for each quilter's inspiration. A novel idea. Next posts coming up are from another quilt exhibit. I'll save you time, gas, and money to "armchair travel" to see this wonderful show at an art museum. Stay tuned...
No comments:
Post a Comment