Old quilts, old people...new quilts, old people or new people?!?

I am stuck in a quandary about appliqued center medallion blocks...if you make them more modern, does that make them weird?  Does human applique on a quilt have to look antique to be considered serious?

I have many favorites inspired by old quilts...like "Phoebe"...and there are so many delightful versions of this medallion out there.





These pictures are from Melinda in NSW, Australia.

Or this one from Kel in Australia.




That quilt has such a lovely, pastoral center, but the setting is what I call old-fashioned or dated.  If the figures were wearing more modern clothing, would it ruin things?  Would it make things seem more cartoon-ish?  

I find versions where the fabrics are brighter and updated, but the style of clothing still remains a little dated.



As I experiment with drawing medallion centers, I have to admit that dressing women in long dresses or skirts allows me to overlook and avoid certain details of anatomy and style that are difficult...like legs, nice shoes, etc.  

And big, floppy coats on the depicted men make things easier, as well.



This example is from Mayleen Vinson of the "Q is for Quilt" blog.  It was machine quilted by Jan Hutchinson.







This all made me start to think...does it diminish or undervalue the work to make the clothing more modern?

I have a hard time drawing life-like people...I get annoyed by the simplicity and cartoon-ish quality in my own work, yet I find it completely charming and lovely in the work of everyone else (we are all so self-critical, aren't we??).

This is the "center" of a center medallion quilt that I started for my parents' 40th anniversary quilt a few years ago (minus the embroidery details, that I still need to do).  It is a part of a larger center medallion that I started the fall before the accident and I showed it to them Christmas 2013, right after their big anniversary, since I obviously had not finished their quilt...

I drew them in the kind of clothing they often wore, and even gave them both stethoscopes, as they were both doctors.  They are surrounded by motifs that depict their interests, accomplishments, and beautiful home that they built together.

Drawing them in antique clothing just seemed wrong...they either wore hospital scrubs, jeans, or outside work clothes.  I put the piece away for two years and recently got it out to consider how to finish it.  Now it will be a much smaller project...a wall hanging, I think. It was going to be a queen-sized bed quilt.

Here is the whole center medallion, minus the embroidery details, which I still need to do...this square will be 34 inches finished.  I will think of some kind of border to put around it.

  
Every motif has meaning...the oak tree (property is covered with them), the pink dogwood (Mom's favorite tree), the peacock (we had one as a "pet" when I was in junior/high school), the chicken (they had them), the bird in hand (Mom fed every bird in the northwest corner of Alabama), the hammer (they worked on or built every house they ever lived in), the daffodil (favorite flower), the pine tree (it's Alabama...), the fish (had a catfish lake), the garden items and the animals.

The blue bird of happiness at the top of the piece is pulling a banner that will read, "The Good Earth," which is the name of the project.

Boy, I really need to go in and do all the embroidery details...that is a lot of "blind" animals and unfinished-looking artwork!

I've drawn and appliqued other people in modern garb...when I made Steve's "Boxer Rebellion" quilt a few years ago, from his old boxer shorts, I depicted him...from the waste up...without garb...

My 'totally-supportive-of-my-quilting-obsession' husband used to joke "that quilts should only be made from old clothes and scraps, like the pioneer women used to do."  Well...his boxer shorts were looking pretty ratty and thin, so I bought him new undies and made him this wall hanging (to hang in his office cubicle) from his old undies.  Ha-ha-ha...

I even quilted him "six-pack abs!

...take that, you cheeky bastard, LOL!  I won ribbons on that quilt, but I think the best thing was all the people that walked by it at the quilt shows and read the story about it on the tag.  My husband's undies were hanging in quilt shows...and in his office at work! Priceless...

But I digress...

The blocks currently hanging out in my blog header depict me and Steve through the years, and I drew us in mostly modern-looking clothes. This project is called "Contentment."

I am also wishy-washy on whether to embroider facial details or not...since I have done it on one, I will probably go back and do it on the others...

No faces on the next two blocks so I don't have to make a decision about whether to embroider faces or not!

I have designed a 16-inch center medallion for those seven blocks, along with five other 10-inch blocks to join the previous seven around it.

And when I did my version of the Civil War Bride quilt, called "Life of Riley," I drew a family portrait block of us at the time...kind of coming out of a wall portrait.  Again, I was unsure about embroidering faces, so I just stitched Steve's glasses and hid Riley's face behind a book (which is usually where her face was in those days...).

So I don't know how I feel about the modern versus antique idea of people depicted in quilts.  As people enjoy making new versions of quilts from our past, the dated clothing continues to be the norm. Maybe that is because people are using a lot of reproduction fabrics to make these quilts, maybe the older style of clothing is easier to applique, or maybe I am just nuts to be worrying about this at all!

Do you have an opinion on this??

In stitches,
Teresa  :o)