What is a Bed Turning?
It’s some quilts with a laugh or a message…
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Happy Easter to all who are celebrating. I hope your chocolate bunnies are delicious.
Last weekend the Voices in Cloth quilt show (put on by the East Bay Heritage Quilters) included a bed turning with antique quilts brought by Julie Silber. What is a bed turning you might wonder? It is basically a pile of quilts on a bed that are held up by volunteers for viewing by the audience. So you can view the quilts both laying on a bed, where they belong, and hanging. Surprisingly some quilts are best seen on a bed as opposed to hanging especially antique quilts.
As I have mentioned before, Julie Silber is a world renown antique quilt dealer and we are very lucky to have her in the San Francisco Bay Area. She comes to show her quilts to various guilds and she also has a store front in Berkeley. When Julie was the presenter at the San Francisco Quilters Guild last summer, I was able to get her expert advice in dating a top that was bought by a friend in Southern California and given to me to hand quilt. Julie is very generous with her knowledge.
Back to the bed turning. Julie brought some of her collection of quilts with slogans or words featured on them. Some were made to express the maker’s political opinions, some were just clever and humorous.
First she showed an absolutely beautiful four block appliqué quilt that was hand quilted by a master quilter. Julie said she had just purchased it and loved it so much she had to bring it to the bed turning even though it didn’t have any slogans on it. She thought it was from the 1800’s and was surprised to find it dated 1928. I was sitting in the front row and when the quilt was taken off the bed and held up for the audience everyone gasped including me. What a breathtakingly beautiful quilt. I wish my photos could have done it justice.
The next quilt was an embroidered Redwork summer spread (made without batting) and dated 1917. Julie said she has seen some other quilts by the same maker and they are all stunning.
This quilt was so eye catching in person with the colors of the vases. Julie said she had never seen a late 1800’s quilt with that particular block pattern. Also it was made in a “quilt as you go” method where each block is quilted individually and sewed together. The seams in the back were covered with bias tape so they wouldn’t show.
This quilt was really cute. It was a collection of advertisements for businesses and might have been made as a raffle quilt to raise money for a local charity.
This is a penny square quilt. Penny squares are preprinted embroidery patterns from the 1920-1930’s that could be bought for a penny and were usually embroidered with red floss. Then they are sewn into a quilt top or table cloth or dresser scarf. This quilt used penny squares but the maker also wanted to include her own designs which were arranged on the bottom. What Julie wanted to know was “Who hit Lizz with a pork chop?” See the last photo lower right corner.
Required self promotion content: my spring classes are coming up.
At Cloth Carousel: Saturday April 13 from 10:30 to 2:30 I am teaching a Beginning Embroidery class Link. And on Saturday May 4 I am doing a Beginning Sashiko class from 10:30 to 1:30 Link. If you would like to come early that day I am also doing a talk about my classes at the First Saturday presentation. Come and join me in Vacaville.
Have you signed up for the All Stars Sampler Platter sponsored by Global Quilt Connection? Link If your guild has not signed up, you can register as an individual. For $20 you can view 18 presentations by 18 teachers offering many different quilting techniques. I am doing one on Sunday April 15 on how to “debone”, meaning cut apart, a shirt to “harvest” the fabric. (See where I’m going here?). Not only that but I will show you some different projects you can make using the harvested fabric. There will be a quilt pattern and some pillows. Did you ever think you can use the front of a shirt with the buttons and placket for the back of a pillow so you don’t need to make an envelope closure? I’ll show you how.