Saturday, March 30, 2013

31. Tinted Chains: Click

Tinted Chains by Becky Brown


"The fact is women are in chains and their servitude is all the more debasing because they do not realize it." Susan B. Anthony, 1872




Anthony realized that the fight for women's rights required a change in women's attitudes before there would be any social change. A century later Ms. Magazine created the code words "The Click," to define that flash when a woman realizes the psychological chains that have governed her self-image, role, and behavior. In Ms.'s first issue Jane O'Reilly wrote about "The Housewife's Moment of Truth," when the traditional husband/wife roles finally catch up with the reality of two working parents. 

The first issue of Ms. 
Spring 1972

That article's success led publishers Gloria Steinem and Letty Cottin Pogrebrin to create a section where women described their self-defining "clicks." Susan B. Anthony would probably have been pleased.

Cartoon by Merle DeVore Johnson
1909

Tinted Chains is a way of shading a familiar pattern of squares to create a directional design, given that name in the Chicago Tribune's Nancy Cabot quilt column of the 1930s 

(BlockBase # 2815c)


Here I've taken the basic repeat and given you measurements for the 8" & 12" blocks. That BlockBase number is #2775b; the pattern is Unnamed.

Tinted Chains from Cookie'sCreek

Shade the fabrics to get the vertical effect.



 Cutting an 8" Finished Block
12" in Red

The blue measurements are for the 8" block,  slightly larger when the BlockBase default is set to 1/16".
A - Cut 2 squares 2-7/8". (3-7/8").

 Cut each in half diagonally to make 2 triangles. You need 4 triangles.



B - Cut 1 square 5-1/4". (5-3/16") (7-3/16")

Cut with 2 diagonal cuts to make 4 triangles.

C -- Cut 5 squares 3-3/8".  (3-5/16") (4-3/4")



Tinted Chains by Becky Brown
Becky emphasized the verticality of the design with a  directional pillar print.

Twisted Chains by Dustin Cecil
Dustin shaded it in a whole different manner.

Woman, the light of the home, is a human generator creating a reading light 
and a breeze for her relaxing husband with her activity
in this 1879 Punch cartoon.


Tinted Chains by Georgann Eglinski

Saturday, March 23, 2013

30. Broad Arrow: Prison Garb


Broad Arrows by Becky Brown

Emmeline Pankhurst arrested in 1914

The British WSPU made good use of the idea of repeated arrests for civil disobedience. Prison was not a deterrent to women who used images of jailed ladies for shock value, hoping to wear down  Parliament's anti-suffrage stance.

Women's Social and Political Union founders
Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst in prison garb

Prison was a horrible experience for well-bred women: the food, confinement, hygiene, abuse and---to hear it from some---the wardrobe. British prisoners were identified (not by stripes as in the U.S.) but by "broad arrows" a triple line stitched or painted on their coarse clothing.


A photo of a prisoner in a cell in Holloway Women's Prison?
---most of the photos of prison garb were made outside jail. 
Jailers knew the value of propaganda photographs. 
Cameras were not permitted inside.


The Broad Arrow became a badge of honor worn by women who'd endured imprisonment.

 Pankhursts and the WSPU 
marching with Broad Arrows on staffs



Artist Sylvia Pankhurst designed a brooch, a literal badge of honor for ex-prisoners, by backing a broad arrow enameled in purple, green and white with a portcullis, the medieval gate that is the traditional symbol of Parliament.


 That symbol became important enough that she featured it on the cover of her history of the movement The Suffragette.



It remains a symbol of the WSPU, here on the historical marker for the London offices.

Broad Arrows by Becky Brown

You can see a similar Broad Arrow in a patchwork design first published in Farm Journal about 1940.

 The magazine showed four blocks together creating a tessellated all-over design.

 BlockBase #1439
shows four blocks rotated.
#1392 Double T is close to the block here, as is #1394 Cactus Flower.
If you want to re-size look at both of those so you get all three patches.





Cutting an 8" Finished Block (12" in Red)
A - Cut 3 squares 3-1/8" (3-3/16" if you use BlockBase's 1/16" inch default). (4-1/2")

B - Cut 2 squares 3-1/2". (4-7/8")

Cut each in half diagonally to make 2 triangles. You need 4 triangles.

C - Cut 1 square 5-7/8" (5-13/16") (8-1/2")


Broad Arrows by Georgann Eglinski

Broad Arrows by Dustin Cecil


Saturday, March 16, 2013

29. Seven-Pointed Star For Australia


Australia's Star
by Becky Brown

Australia's representative in the 1913 march in Washington
 at Woodrow Wilson's inauguration.

Between 1894 and 1908  women won the vote in all six of Australia's states. Proud to be an example of success, Australian suffragists traveled to the United States and England to march and speak.


Women's rights leaders in London marching at King George VI's 
coronation in 1911 with a banner featuring the 
Australian Coat of Arms behind them. 
Center: Margaret Fisher,  To her right Emily Magowan, 
both wives of Australian politicians. 
In white on our right suffragist Vida Goldstein.


Here's another banner carried in that London parade, painted by Dora Meeson Coates in 1908, now in the collection of the Parliament House Art Collection. The younger woman wearing the coat of arms represents trend-setting Australia who is advising her mother Britannia to adopt women's suffrage:  "Trust the Women, Mother, As I Have Done."


Some Australian suffragists adopted the colors of England's Women's Freedom League, green, gold and white. This invitation to a 1911 London procession gives detailed instructions about what to wear to "harmonize with the general scheme."

Australia's first Coat of Arms (1908-1912) featured a kangaroo, an emu and, above them, a seven-pointed star with points representing the Commonwealth's six states plus one point for the territories. 

The "Trust the Women" banner holds an important place in Australia's  history. It was found in an English library in 1988, recognized from the old photos and purchased by the Australian Bicentennial Authority.


Here two politicians, Margaret Reynolds and
 Ros Kelly pose with the banner in 1988, 
the year it was donated to Australia by Edith Hall.


A seven-pointed star is a feat of geometry, something not found in the published quilt pattern literature or BlockBase. However, one can draw an Australian star in Electric Quilt. (I found a picture of a 7-pointed star and imported it to trace.) 

Or click on this picture and print it out the size you want it.

For piecing I'd cut one copy of each template around the edge.
The 7 star points are identical.

Better yet, I'd applique it as Becky did. That requires only one template for the diamonds and
an 8-1/2" background square. If you want to re-size it---shrink or enlarge.

Here's the 8" Pattern. See the 12" pieces at the bottom of the page.


Australia's Star
By Becky Brown

You may notice that Becky's star is smaller than the one I drafted.
Here's what she says:
"I took the chicken way out, as I was fearful of star points landing all over the place. So I kept away from the edges and drafted my star based on a 6" block.


A single star---7 points or not---is too dull for Dustin so he added a little something. I think he traced the  star outline onto a piece of patchwork he already had and appliqued the whole thing down.

It will be fun to see what everybody comes up with.

Here's Connie's. Fussy cut!

Read a newspaper account of the 1988 gift of the Banner here:

Read about Australia-born Muriel Matters who was active in England's Women's Freedom League:

And hear an interview with Matters here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/suffragettes/8315.shtml

Below templates for a 12" Block.