DAR Museum’s bedroom exhibit will be sleeper hit

If summer vacation or other travel plans take you to points south in the next several months, consider making a stop at the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, 1776 D St. NW, Washington, D.C.

The DAR Museum’s current exhibit is “And So to Bed: The American Bedroom, 1750-1920.” The exhibit is in place through Oct. 6.

“When we envisioned an exhibit examining the early American bedroom, one of our curators immediately came up with the title, ‘And so to bed’ from the words that 17th century diarist Samuel Pepys used to end each day’s journal entry,” according to information at the DAR’s Web site, www.dar.org.

On exhibit are reproduction Colonial America bed hangings, a circa 1750 indigo resist-printed cotton quilt and other quilts, nightgowns, morning wear, nightcaps, bathing tubs, washstands, bed steps, chamber pots and even Thomas Jefferson’s slipper socks.

The exhibit traces the evolution of the bedroom as it changed to incorporate new styles of furniture and sleepwear and how mattress technology led to the advent of the coil spring sleep surfaces that are the norm today.

The exhibit also reflects the evolution of the bathroom from the days when bathing involved only a basin and water pitcher and was done infrequently, to the days of the early shower bath when bathing was promoted as a standard principle of good hygiene.

The DAR Museum collects quilts of the 18th and 19th centuries, and its collection includes seven Maryland and Baltimore applique quilts. The collection also includes framed medallion and white-work bed coverings, as well as typical log cabin and crazy quilts. The quilters’ names, family affiliations or regional information are usually known because DAR members donated most of the quilts to the museum.

Quilts in the DAR Museum collection – 292 of them – are featured online at www.quiltindex.org and include a whole-cloth quilt made by Ann Pamela Cunningham, circa 1800-49; a star of Bethlehem and eight-point design quilt, circa 1800-49; a pieced butterfly quilt, circa 1930-49; and a chips-and-whetstone pattern quilt, circa 1800-1849.

The Alliance for American Quilts and Michigan State University created the Quilt Index database. To be added to the database in the coming months are quilts from the Museum of the American Quilter’s Society; the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum; the University of Nebraska-Lincoln libraries; and the Winedale Center for the Quilt at the Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. Adding those quilts will expand the index database to 15,000. The index makes images of the quilt collections of individual repositories accessible worldwide to those who love and study quilts.

For more information, visit www.centerforthequilt.org and www.museum.msu.edu.

Snippets

Charlene Woodvine of Newport is participating in the MS3 – mystery stole 3 – knit-along on the Internet. Those participating in the knit-along receive pattern “clues” each week. They have no idea what the finished shawl will look like until they’ve finished knitting it.

“I have finished two clues already,” Woodvine said in an e-mail several weeks ago. “This is an international group of knitters numbering about 6,700. We do not have enough clues yet to pinpoint the theme for this year’s stole. However, I am seeing a bee and honeycombs emerge from the lace so far.”

Although this knit-along is already in progress and not open to more participants, patterns for mystery stoles 1 and 2 are available from “Melanie” at ww.pinklemontwist.com.

Quilters may be want to try out this new product, the Ultimate Quilt Pounce Pad, a tool that will transfer the lines of a stencil used in hand quilting by swiping the chalk-filled pad across the stencil. After quilting along the lines, the chalk marks can be ironed off. To learn more about the product and where it can be purchased visit www.fulllinestencil.com.

Felting has become such a popular craft that Interweave Knits has created a special issue just for folks who felt, called, of course, Felt. The special issue made its debut July 17 on newsstands. It features how-to felting projects and articles about the art and process of felting. Visit www.interweave.com to obtain more information.

Brooksville knitter Brennan Murphy will show her knitwear designs 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Aug. 2-4, at Eggemoggin Textile Studio in Sargentville. Murphy will be on hand to knit and talk with visitors to the studio. For more information, call 359-5083.

Artist Laurie Walton of Glenburn sent me a fabric postcard adorned with needle tatting, a skill she has just learned, in a basket shape. For those interested in needle tatting, she suggests www.tat-calendar.blogspot.com where visitors will find 365 days of free patterns, including one of Walton’s – click on the 16 in the July calendar. Her blog spot is “Socks Have no Thumbs.”

The Directions Fine Craft Show will be held 5-9 p.m. Friday, Aug. 3, and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 4 and 5, at the Atlantic Oakes Conference Center, Route 3, Bar Harbor.

Call Ardeana Hamlin at 990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.