Recently the Yarnspirations Design Team took a field trip to see the ‘Quilts: Made in Canada’ exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum. The show was a stunning and inspiring display of the museum’s collection of rare Canadian-made quilts dating from 1848 to the present day. We spent an indulgent afternoon leaning as close as possible into each quilt without setting off museum alarms, oohing and ahhing over the amazing artistry and skill of our quilting predecessors. Every quilt on display used patterns and techniques still used by today’s quilters, attesting to the timelessness of this craft. I loved spotting log cabins and Irish Crosses, embroidery and appliqué in these quilts, some of which were centuries old! Recently I wrote a blog tutorial on Sewing Half Square Triangles so this particular block was top-of-mind. And wouldn’t you know it, there was no shortage of this beloved block here. In fact, there were over 8,000 of them in this one quilt alone! Dating back to 1880, this beauty is comprised of over 8,000 hand-sewn triangles measuring just 2 cm long (yikes! My fingers hurt just typing that!). These tiny triangles are made in many different fabrics as every scrap was saved and repurposed. Repurposing fabrics from clothing was a common thread (heh) in these quilts as no scrap was deemed too small and nothing went to waste. I particularly loved this one, made by Elizabeth McLean which dates to 1865-70 using scraps of cotton flannel and homespun wool, which she wove herself — a true Crafty Queen! If you zoom in closely to the upper right corner, you can see that she pieced together many small pieces of the same fabric to create a larger square — I love the unique problem-solving skills of a crafter! Perhaps one of the most mesmerizing pieces in the exhibit was this ‘Crazy Quilt’. This was a style made by sewing irregular shapes of assorted silks, satins and velvet on a solid piece and then embellished with embroidery, ribbon and even paint! I was amazed to learn that the seemingly modern technique of printing photographs onto fabric was invented in 1879! Mrs Thomas Murray, who incorporated her photo and those of her 4 children (sorry Mr Thomas Murray, guess you didn’t make the cut) was a quilting trailblazer! This quilt had so much going on — the more you looked, the more you saw! The write up on this quilt made by Mary ‘Esther’ Hall on the occasion of her wedding gave me great joy. While the quilt itself was made in 1848, some fabric in this piece has been dated between 1810s and 1820s and others date from between the 1830s and 1840s, showing that quilters kept fabrics for decades before finding just the right project for them. Mary, on behalf of fabric stashers everywhere, I salute you! To those reading this who may be feeling a little sheepish about their stash, just consider yourself to be carrying on a centuries old quilting As someone who uses Adobe Illustrator to chart out designs, I loved seeing the pages from this quilter’s notebook. I failed to jot down when this notebook dates to, but curiosity got the better of me — using my very junior investigative skills I can date this notebook to sometime after 1908, when Faber-Castell began producing their 60-color pencil range. Rounding out the exhibit was an interactive magnetic wall that encouraged folks to play around with Half Square Triangles to explore their infinite pattern possibilities. I played around with a few before I realized I had fallen quite far behind my group. I left this exhibit so inspired by the quilts and the women who made them. It was an important reminder that we’re not just making ‘crafts’ — we’re making art as a way of sharing ourselves and our histories. Who knows, maybe a quilt you’ve made will end up in a museum some day, which is why you should always, always sign and date your work! Check out our Half Square Triangle Wall Hanging Quilt pattern and Half Square Triangle Quilted Pillow pattern, and have fun coming up with your own layouts!
