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http:// --> Ashland, Oregon HOME Valley & State Sports Nation & World Opinion/Editorial Classifieds Business Columnists Local Issues Obituaries Weather Archive Revels Etcetera Backpage Hot Topics Most Viewed Forum Photo Galleries Video Readers Polls O-Zone Online Games Movie Preview Special Sections Real Estate Guide Menu Guide Shakespeare Subscribe Contact Us Rate Card Place an Ad Featured Galleries: March 27, 2007 Antique quilts have rich history By Vickie Aldous Ashland Daily Tidings ABOVE : Store owner Molly Schiessl is drawn to quilts by both business and historical interests. The shop, Fourth Corner Fine Quilt Gallery, is enjoying a new location this season. Below: Fourth Corner Fine Quilt Gallery has moved to A street near other galleries and shops. BELOW : Cricket, Molly Schiessl's cat enjoys a quilt for its true purpose, comfort. Photos by Matt Gemmell | For the Tidings Eliza Jane Douglas Badger's husband died of typhoid in the Civil War, leaving her alone to take care of their eight children. Yet somehow she found time to sit down and make an elaborately detailed quilt stitched with four eagles clutching olive branches and arrows in their claws. Unlike so many old quilts that have been stuffed in attics or used as horse blankets, family members carefully preserved the quilt that commemorated the life of John Badger. "It was a strange case where no one ever lost sense of what an incredible family history it represented," said Molly Schiessl, owner of the Fourth Corner Fine Quilt Gallery in Ashland. Along with many others, the quilt is on display at the gallery, which moved in March from a hard-to-find alley location to a prime storefront building at 552 A St. Schiessl buys and sells antique quilts from the1840s to the 1940s, with prices ranging from $50 to tens of thousands of dollars. Although her mother is a quilter, Schiessl does not do quilting herself. Instead, she said she is attracted to the art form for its aesthetics and because quilts embody the history of women, America and industrialization. Quilts were largely overlooked as pieces of art until the Whitney Museum in New York showcased quilts in a 1971 exhibition. States with a rich history of quilting then began documenting remaining quilts and prices began to take off, Schiessl said. "You couldn't buy old quilts as old blankets for $10 or $20. The appreciation of quilts as art only goes back about 35 years," she said. "Obviously, a lot of quiltmakers saw it as art. It was their safe creative outlet." Most women couldn't go to art school, and besides, many early Americans frowned upon activities that seemed indulgent and unproductive, Schiessl said. But the human urge to create remained. That impulse can be seen in a quilt that Schiessl calls the "Sketchbook Quilt." Like an obsessive doodler, its maker covered the material in stitched peacocks, rabbits, horses, sugar bowls, moons, stars, mittens, roosters and other quirky drawings. The amount of work that has gone into the quilts is mind-boggling. The women didn't take shortcuts. One baby quilt is scaled down to fit the dimensions of a crib. But instead of piecing together large diamonds like those that would be used for an adult-size blanket, the quilter used hundreds of tiny diamonds for her late-1800s creation. The adhesive in the brown dye used to stain some of the diamonds contained too much iron, causing some of the fabric to rust away, Schiessl explained. But the resulting holes are so small that the quilt has stayed together. A woman replaced worn hexagons on an 1842 quilt with new hexagons colored with synthetic red dye. Yet the new synthetic dyes were not color-fast, and the hexagons faded to a muted tan. Before synthetic dyes, people used vegetable-based dyes, or imported cloth from countries that used secret coloring methods. The creation of so-called "Turkey Red" was a 14-step process that yielded a brilliant hue, but subjected the fabric to wear. One step involved boiling the fabric in oil, Schiessl said. "People were obsessed with colors. Methods were jealously guarded because a color of fabric could be the cornerstone of a country's trade," she said. "We're so spoiled in our world. Back then, it was so hard to get colors that you could rely on and afford." Today's quilters can buy fabrics in specialty stores with an almost unlimited variety of colors and patterns. Schiessl said that although quilts are no longer necessary and women have many creative outlets, quilting is a thriving $2 billion-a-year industry. Unlike with other art forms, members of the public feel comfortable with quilts because they are either quilters themselves or have relatives who quilt. "Quilts are appealing aesthetically — and they also make you want to touch them," she said. "They have some enduring appeal that has nothing to do with need or thrift or women not being able to do art." For more information on Fourth Corner Fine Quilt Gallery, call 552-1818 or visit www.fcfquilts.com . Staff writer Vickie Aldous can be reached at 479-8199 or [email protected]. Leave a Comment: Advertisement: Advertisement: Paid Advertising: Debt Help Inkjet Printers Payday Loans Free Ringtones Debt Consolidation Security Systems Debt Relief New Hampshire Primary Advertisement: Copyright © 2007 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers. All Rights Reserved. Del.icio.us