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Show THE DAILY HERALD, (www.heraldextra.com). Home Magazine, Friday, March 3, 2000 Page 16 cbi vadd vintage touch' to home decor Quilfts pieced together and used in fresh, new ways. Even if a quilt is machine-made- , it is still rich with meaning. It still has an heirloom quality that's well worth savoring. And it can be the raw material from which something utilitarian, attract tive and emotionally meaningful can be made: To. really, appreciate a quilt, new or old, you only have to ponder the past and the. role th'is " pedestrianr textile has played throughout the history of the world and. in particular.- the history., of MICHAEL WALSH By Universal Press Syndicate Where have all the antique patchwork quilts gone? Back to where they were 30 years ago, stuffed., into cedar chests, steamer trunks and linen closets, as unappreciated and unseen now as they were before the 1976 Bicentennial brought them out of hiding and colmade them must-havI lectibles; Motivated bv patriotic nostalgia, acquisitiveness, and prices, antique dealers; snarfed up these textiles by thb armload back then. Taken-for- : granted heirloom' quilts that had languished in family attics for decades flooded the market,' their owners, cashing in on a new craze. The best went. to museums or serious collectors. Most of the rest were doled out to casual collectors who valued them more for the contributions they could make to country-style decorating than, for their historical meaning. As they later v;ou'd with vintage Indian and Pendleton blankets,, thee. folks piled, their quilts' 'into.- pine armoires. Many of them remain there ' foshy." folded up and largely' forgotten, possessed but hardly: valued. These days you can comb through an entire antiques mall and be lucky to find a sin- - ' . e high-touc- dt?t-chea- ' handmade gle antique patchwork quilt. And if you do. it will be overpriced. But you will still find good quilts, old and new, unquilted pieced quilt tops, quilt fragments and individual patchwork blocks. Look around and you'll be surprised to discover that department stores, discount stores and linen shops are now selling brand-neclassic American quilts, handmade and machine-made- . r offer catalogs American-stylpatchwork quilts that are partially or entirely Don't turn your nose up at second-tiequilts, quilt fragments or new quilts. You can use them in way you could never use a museum-qualitantique or a genuine heirloom as a table runner, a table squftre, a shower curtain, valance or padded cornice, a slipcover for an ottoman, cushion covers for a chair or sofa, mats. or place pillows Individual quilt blocks can be matted and framed. In other words, new quilts and old ones that are not precious antiques can be cut up. Mail-orde- e hand-quilte- r y h -- America:i' ; The Egyptians and Chinese were' quilting fabric for clothing more than' 12.000 years ago. . During the Crusades, European soldiers used quilted clothing as a rudimentary form of armor. Quilted clothing became fashionable during the 1500s .in Spain and then throughout Europe because one, layer oft fabric wasn't enough to support heavily jeweled formal women, isolated for months at a time on distant farms with only men and children for company. Like rnany rural women of the 180Qs ,and early 1900s. Pennsylvania: Dutch women were denied the opportunity to learn to read and write. Quilting was a way for them to leave a record of themselves. During the years of the Underground Railroad, slaves fleeing the .South and making their way North relied on a secret directional symbols church, farmhouse, a landmark tree that had been, incorporated into, quilts draped across fence rails or on clotheslines. The quilts . served as maps to guide them fro.m one I r safe house to another. The names given to specif- ti 1 " ic J&- 1 - 4. - . ? . . II if i 1 4-- .. C'i'j! J" 4 i Ji : - i rf H fk U ft Ti Vi 7 " j ti . quilt designs reflect the images, events and conditions familiar and important to country women at the time. Some movement suggest J 'continent: across the I Sherman's march to the sea TT,"' v.s during the Civil War. thes Mohawk Trail, Rocky Road to attire. Kansas, Road .to Oklahoma'. Classic crafts: Quilts, The crazy quilt, probably Road to California. Wandering such as on walls. Others. the must' American of all Foot. quilts, was a Colonial innova-- . Weathervane or Log Cabin, evoke frontier icons, Other tiqn. England's Navigation .Acts prohibited the colonists, names were borrowed from from., buying textiles from nature: Dogwood Blossom. other countries and from man- Morning Star, own. Autumn Leaf. Flying their ufacturing Clouds. Duck's Foot, Bear Paw, Resourceful colonists recycled their old clothes, salvaging Fruit Basket. Those and other American every scrap and sewing them together to make bed covers. patterns persist even in quilts Later, when scraps were a bit being made today, whether by more plentiful but still pre- - rural women across the councious. quilters began cutting try or in textile factories on the out geometric shapes and other side of the globe. The sewing them into patchwork names, the images, patterns, ' icons, still have the power to designs. Because blankets were not convey the social, political and until just economic history of a country, to evoke a time and place, to Civil before the War, homemade patchwork quilts were provide a common thread that " the only bedding available to allows us to connect our own early Americans. When they past to our present and future. wore out, they were cut up and combined with other fragments or used to stuff other quilts. In American cities in the late 19th century, when ' - ' o Universal Press Syndicate are works old or new, of art worthy of display : . Corn-and-Bean- . GRAND OPENING I zrwr ' J, S l K. . , mass-produce- d machine-mad- , blankets e became plentiful, became not just unnecessary but a sign of poverty and a source of shame. In rural America, though, it remained a necessity well into the 1930s and evolved into an art form. Shirt tails, blouse sleeves, bib overalls, baby clothes, curtains, tablecloths all precious scraps of fabric were hoarded and used for quilts. 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