I know I may be in danger of being stoned, or thrown out of some quilting circles.
Or the cake making circles I never joined in the first place! haha.
But I don't find I have any connection with Civil War Reproduction Fabrics. I find them rather dull, &
I am not sure if it is because I don't feel any connection with the American Civil War, or because of the dull colours. I just dont 'get it'?
The extremely drear colours, just don't appeal to me. My soul craves bright, cheery, even dazzling, colours.
Perhaps it is because the countries I have live in, did not have a "Civil War". The light, & the sun are brighter? I just don't understand the lack of feeling I have for those fabrics.Maybe it is the same lack of feeling I had for movie stars? Or singing stars? Just 'famous', in a world that did not involve, or engage me?
I can admire people who use those fabrics for their patchwork, or quilts. I don't, however, want to join them or use any of those brown & humble fabrics.
Dare I confess, I have never wanted to do a Dear Jane??
Why would I? When I have a world of Brights to choose from? A whole new world of dazzling colours & prints? I must be a 'Strictly Modern Millie'!!
Another confession I have, is relating to "CUP CAKES"!!!
I really don't get the obsession with these things??
I realise these pictured above, are really Butterfly Cakes, in the Southern Hemisphere. Made with dobs of Sponge mix in little cup cake pans. Then you cut the tops off, & plaster them with cream & maybe some jam, before returning the tops in butterfly mode. They are a PIA to make, & quite frankly, "Life is too bloody short!!"These pictured below, are Cup Cakes of another variety. They can also be made with dobs of sponge mixture, or whatever cake of the day, takes your fancy. Slather them with enough sickly/garish toppings, & you have CUP CAKES!! TA DA!!!!
In Spite of all the fancy toppings, they are usually rather dry. They can make an adult- or child- gag. They can, actually, become rather sickening.
I might be heard in the background, muttering, where is the dip? Where are the cheesy bits? The savouries?Yes, OK, I know some of those can be sickening too. But they seem way more attractive than sweets... dry, or not!
There are other things I could confess to, but hell, enough is enough, about soul-baring, & exposing the ugly or deficient bits..
Give me some of your secret confessions.
I promise, I wont stand in judgement. I always urge my quitl recipients to bear in mind, the quilt in question, was made by a very clay footed human!!
"Let he who is without", & all that jazz....
Bob Dylan, I Shall Be Released.
26 comments:
i have to agree about the civil war fabrics.. BORING!
i too like bright, cheerful happy coliours, it gives you a lift! who wants to look at boring colours or feel bored all the time... yuck! give me life and fun any day.
Elizabeth in Melbourne.
Hi Elizabeth in Melbourne.
Are you the same Elizabeth that used to comment from USA? I have missed her comments.
I was expecting to be castigated for speaking out, but it is nice to find a fellow disliker of Civil War fabrics! Thankyou for leaving a comment!
I'm with you. I also all about brights and would never want to do a drab Civil War quilt. Those dull homespun looking fabrics are just too boring. I would also NEVER start a Dear Jane. I get tired just looking at them.
Couldn't agree more! The drab CW prints just leave me cold as does the thought of reproducing the Jane Stickle quilt. Give me shabby chic, brights, batiks -- anything but CW!
Add me to the bandwagon! I don'tlike the Civil War fabrics or quilts. Dear Jane leaves me cold. Bring on brights, or soft clear colors, but not the drab ones. Let the sun shine! (And I am an American.)
Meggie, in answer to your question, the stuff remained behind and it and the house now belong to the National Trust so that we can all go to Snowshill and look at the collection and shudder and vow to go home and have a clearout.
I didn't really understand your post in detail - never heard of Civil War fabrics or Dear Janes - but if you want confessions as to what we don't see the point of, mine would be: singers like Rod Stewart and Amy Winehouse who can't actually sing, just sort of croak; piercings, even in ears, especially on the older person with long, swingy, elephant-like earlobes; tattoos; gettnng drunk (why?); taking drugs (why?); a lot of modern art...
That enough?
ha! I totally 'get' you on the civil war fabrics front. Mum is currently making a 'Dear Jane' quilt. As you might know this is THE civil war quilt. However, she can't bear the 'prescribed' colours, so is making it in liberty prints - much nicer!
I'm quite partial to buggering about prettifying cakes. But hey, I'm weird!
x
Ahhh Meggie! You were born without a sweet tooth! I have an insatiable sweet tooth and I LOVE anything involving sugar -- so naturally, that includes sickeningly sweet cupcakes. Plus, a lot of the cupcake obsession for me is that I just think they look so cute -- they can be decorated in lots of fun ways -- it's pretty hard to make a hamburger look all cute and froofy! I'd be perfectly happy to have a pie obsession or an cookie obsession -- ice creams? creme brulees? Anything sugar obsession!!! I enjoy doing things that take extra time -- trying to enjoy the process -- although sometimes I admit I say "what's the point" after you spend and hour making something fun and then the family scarfs it up in 5 seconds!
As for the civil war fabrics, I can certainly see the aversion. I personally prefer brights and pastels these days, but I do love the dark and dull too. I guess I love all the colors and the time spent making a quilt out of anything. Even so many of the quilts now that seem to just be big easy jumbo squares -- not much to them piecing-wise, but they highlight the beauty of the fabric, rather than the piecing. Maybe you should make a dear Jane out of brights? I think that would be beautiful!
Sorry for the book -- guess you just hit on two things I love -- quilts and sugar!
Maybe those of us who read your blog tend to agree with you about things. You can add me to the list of people who doesn't like Civil War fabrics. I don't think it has a thing to do with relating to the US civil war. They're just boring! I wouldn't do a Dear Jane, either, though I have seen one in batiks and one in brights that I like -- just not anything I'd ever want to do.
I agree! Civil war reproduction fabrics = dull and b-o-r-i-n-g. Now I'll be ostracised too! And while we're at it---no desire to make a dear jane quilt either.....
Our name for your butterfly cakes was queen cakes---the way my mother msde them? Yummy!
I agree - a pox on civil war repro fabrics! Also, while we're at it, let's put a pox on 1970s calicos.
Secret confession: I loathe the collagey art style that's currently so popular. (Woohoo! slap some random crap on a surface in random order and you've got yourself a piece of "art"!) I received the latest Quilting Arts magazine yesterday, and page after page was filled with stuff in this style. I couldn't really tell one artist's work from another!
Cupcakes can be interesting. I made a batch from scratch recently, piped in some pastry cream and then topped them with chocolate ganache. The result was acceptable, and once I'd tossed most of the cupcakes in the freezer, safer to have around than a full-sized cake.
I envy you your lack of sweet tooth. It really is better for one's health and teeth that way.
HI Meggie,
I am not a large fan of Civil War fabrics- I am a colorful gal and make quilts with lots of different colors. I find it very hard to work with only a small section of the color wheel. I do admire other people's Dear Jane quilts but would never make one- way too complicated for me..
As for cupcakes - I am like you- give me savory - cheezies,nuts and appetizers- If I am going to have sweet then it would be chocolate bars or gum drops... I am not a huge fan of desserts - cakes or puddings-
I don't like rides at fairs, hot hot weather, big crowds or shopping in malls.
Happy stitching,
Regards,
Anna
I like cupcakes!
But I don't like the look of the dull fabric. Civil War fabric? Dear Jane? They are puzzling concepts.
Now you have made me feel like a cake....
OK. Going out on a limb here: I adore CW fabrics, as I do 30's prints, the new "repro" ranges, japanese fabrics, brights, etc. The ones I have trouble with are "country" ~ and even then I quite like a lot of the fabrics - just don't like country quilts. LOL
I make cupcakes (patty cakes to Australians) when my daughter requests them, but really, a cake you can just slice seems so much easier than fiddling about with papers and dolloping mix into each one.
We mostly prefer savoury in this house. Cakes are a real "mood" thing.
Lots of good comments there ahead of me Meggie.
I suspect it might be a personality type thing.....give me bright beautiful fabric any time . Also give me savourries.I tend to not worry about what others like; I just do my own thing. I like to design my own quilts as I have always had a strong artistic side and half the fun is first colour then value then shape and overall design.( if I don't like the fabric I probably won't like the quilt. )
When they first made the CW quilts I think it was from necessity and fabric was scarce, so anything availbe was used including used fabric from clothes or curtains or whatever. I am sure quilting from necessity to keep family warm would be quite a different experience.
I try not to judge others( not always sucessful there ) and not worry about what they like or things I can't change. The only one I have influence over directly is me, so, be me, do what delights me, as often as I can.Accept others point of view as another, way another idea. I love variety it would be ghastly if we were all the same!
Speaking of the scarcity and the Civil War -- remember Scarlet and the drape that she made a gown from? I with the crowd that votes for brights, though I also have some oddball combinations of dull plus bright that appeal to me (olive drab plus scarlet or melon, for example, and khaki is a nice backdrop for any brilliant color.) As for cupcakes, hohum.
I know sod all about quilting fabrics but I prefer bright and cheery over drab and dreary anyday of the week!
As for Butterfly Cakes - I won first prize in the cooking class at school on the Chatham Islands when I was about 12 with my Butterfly Cakes. No mean feat considering we had a coalrange to cook with!!
I wonder if the reason for the boring fabrics from that time had something to do with the availability of certain dies and fabrics during the war.
I like cupcakes too - my secret confession is that I make them from a packet.
So lazy not making them myself from scratch.
I love brights too. I don't mind the dull colours when they make the brights look brighter! Contrast is great. And I don't have a sweet tooth either. Lead me to the savouries every time!
Hi All, There have been some very interesting comments.
I didn't mean I didn't admire the original Civil War quilts, using the fabrics that were of the day, but I cant really understand why the reproductions, in this day of so many possibilities for colour.
I do love the 1930s repro's & I also love the Aunt Grace line, but they were quite bright, & some of them remind me of dresses my mother made for me, when I was little.
I can respect the skills of those far off women, who made beautiful quilts from whatever they could find, & still feel patchwork is all about make & do.
Which is why my quilts are mostly purely scrap quilts, as I tend not to buy large amounts of fabrics.
I also realise fashions come & go, in colours as well as patterns, & it all makes for a wonderfully diverse mix.
Thanks for revealing some of your phobias, or dislikes!
Would have to google the quilt stuff to relate, but even though I am a savoury girl myself, I don't mind a cupcake :p
It's the commercially bought ones I find are dry and lacking.
As for confessions .. where do you want me to start ? ;)
Civil War fabrics...nope! Not for me. I like colour in my life: brights, clear pastels, pretties.
Cupcakes? Look pretty, but eating wise, I think they're highly over rated. I don't cook cakes and biscuits, because they get eaten too quickly. All that work with nothing left to show for it! I'd rather mess around in my sewing room.
I do like 30's fabrics, at least they're fun, and hexagons appeal although I will probably never make one, but a Dear Jane? Never!
I like the Civil War repro fabrics and also like almost all other types except the repro 70's look that seems to be all over the place these days, at least that's what these fabrics remind me of. I guess it's good that we aren't all alike, this way there's something for everyone's taste. Regarding the Dear Jane, when it was first out, I totally disliked it, said I'd never make it. Later on I got the idea I should make it and so far have made perhaps ten blocks. Since then I've lost interest and am unsure if I will proceed. I agree, there are so many colorful and beautiful quilts one could make, and I don't know if I'm up to the challenge in making it. I guess the future of my DJ remains to be seen :) I know I won't lose sleep over it, either way!
I kinda' like cupcakes..used to bake up batches for the last day of VBS.
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I think that all civil war fabic lovers are Scungey Bagheads! That does it for me doesn't it! But they would never look at my blog anyway! :)
I think you need to come to my house for the party on Sunday I make the most moist delicious cup cakes ... thanks to Betty Crocker!!!!!! See you Sunday!
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