Welcome to Our Celebration! And a Give Away

Welcome to our Suffrage Centennial Celebration!!!

2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment and women's right to vote!

A few years ago, Beth Bacher and I created a program for the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War called:  Money, Myth, and Madder:  Women and Quilting During the Civil War.  We had so much fun creating and presenting the program that we decided to do another.

By the Chimney No More:  Women and Quilting from 1865 to 1920 is our new program.   It's really about what we term, "the first age of women's empowerment" and some of the changes women dealt with are reflected in the many quilts and textiles we show during this trunk show.

We're quilters and we have to use every scrap--even if it is articles and information we've collected at museums, libraries, and historical societies.  So we decided to use this blog to share many stories we found that we couldn't include in our program.  

Suffragists inspired us and we think they will inspire you.  They devised ingenious ways to market their cause that would make public relations firms envious today.  They were also quilters and their efforts inspired us to sponsor The Suffrage Centennial Quilt Challenge.  You can read about that on the sidebar of this blog.

Suffragists came in every color, background and age group.  We encourage you to check out our approach as we relay anecdotes, stories, artwork and photographs that illustrate the story of us.

 To kick off our celebration, we are offering a give away.   We wanted to offer a suffrage inspired fabric so Beth picked up some suffrage inspired fat quarters and I contributed half yards of yellow/gold from Riley Blake--as well as some other doo-dads we are gifting!

Why yellow/gold? 

In 1869, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton visited Kansas and learned that the sunflower was not only the state flower but the symbol of suffragists in Kansas.  They liked the idea and soon yellow/gold became the official color of the movement.  

At parades and pageants, women wore white and embellished their outfits with yellow ribbons and sashes.  The uniformity of the crowds of women dressed all the same made a powerful visual impact for bystanders.  By the way, white fabric was chosen for dresses because it was affordable for women of all economic backgrounds.  

Other colors would also be associated with the movements and different groups; we will be talking about that in another post.  

Today we welcome you with the warmth, clarity and energy of a golden sunrise and hope these posts will inspire you to honor the women who worked and sacrificed for future generations of women.

Three winners will be chosen randomly on Saturday and to enter you have to leave a comment and be a follower of the blog.  To follow the blog by email, simply plug your email address into the gadget on the side that looks like this:

You will receive an email with an activation button and that is it!  

Winners will be announced on Sunday morning!

Good luck to you and thank you for celebrating with us!