Category Archives: Barbara Brackman
Book of the Week: Borderland in Butternut and Blue
This week’s Book of the Week is Barbara Brackman’s Borderland in Butternut and Blue, which means it’s $5 off! Barbara Brackman herself wrote up some information for you all to enjoy!
From Barbara:
The 150th Anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War will be here in 2011 and I’ve had a few requests for ideas for a commemorative quilt. I have written several books about quilts and the Civil War but I always tell people that my favorite is the one I did for Star Books a few years ago, called Borderland in Butternut and Blue. There are patterns for a sampler of blocks plus stand alone patterns honoring women on both sides of the War in the West.
It’s my favorite because it’s about the war in my region of the country, the Kansas/Missouri border. And I loved doing the research, finding out more about women who lived through the Border War, like the Southern-sympathizing Kreeger family.
Order Number ElevenEver since I got my copy of Ruby McKim’s old book 101 Quilt Patterns and found a pattern named “Order Number Eleven” in there I have been intrigued by the story McKim told. Fannie Kreeger Haller, a friend in Independence, Missouri, was “a dear old lady in her eighties who was a little girl …back in war times [who'd] seen her mother’s choice new quilt snatched from the bed by marauders. She carried the memory of this striking pattern in her mind.”
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Filed under Barbara Brackman
A Guest Blogger – Barbara Brackman!
Butternut & Blue by Betty Weber McNeill
The quilts above and below are from a Kansas City Star Quilts book I wrote called Borderland in Butternut and Blue. We used navy blue and yellow ochre to symbolize the Confederacy and the Union in the Civil War.
Butternut & Blue (detail) by D. June Ford
We tend to think of Civil War colors as “the blue and the gray,” but many Southern soldiers had no access to official Confederate uniforms and wore their everyday clothing made of home-dyed butternut.
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Filed under Barbara Brackman
Hats off to many hats!
Here at The Kansas City Star, we wear a lot of hats. The state of the newspaper industry in recent years, combined with a slumping economy, have caused many unfortunate layoffs for newspaper companies across the country. The Star has not been immune to it. Nor has our little umbrella department called Star Info that Doug, Edie and I work under. Because we, like many other companies, are short-staffed, we find ourselves in unfamiliar waters.
Many Hats!These waters, while often turbulent, not only teach us but are fun too. Never did I think I’d help write a script and produce a documentary about historical quilt patterns (this is my hard hat). I find it an honor to contribute to a weekly blog (my newsboy hat), and love my role as production editor (my baseball cap) and marketing manager (my cowboy hat). In addition, right now, outside of quilts, Star Info is working to produce the McClatchy Newspapers book about President-elect Barack Obama (my fireman’s hat). Here at Star Info we are spreading our wings – I still believe there is a silver lining in everything.
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Filed under Barbara Brackman, Diane McLendon
Carrie Hall’s Sampler: Favorite Blocks from a Classic Pattern Collection by Barbara Brackman
Carrie Hall’s Sampler by Barbara BrackmanPattern expert Barbara Brackman has selected some of her favorite designs featured in the 1935 classic book by Carrie Hall and Rose Kretsinger, The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt in America.
The result is Carrie Hall’s Sampler, which combines traditional appliqué blocks and pieced accents into a stunning sampler.
Barbara designed the updated quilt as a Block-of-the-Month quilt for the Kaw Valley Quilters Guild. Also included are design interpretations stitched by guild members.
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Filed under Barbara Brackman, Books
