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old vs new quilting books



 
 
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  #1  
Old August 22nd 14, 04:03 AM posted to rec.crafts.textiles.quilting
Brian[_3_]
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Posts: 63
Default old vs new quilting books

I have 2 different quilting books on my Kindle e-reader, one called
"Quilts/Their Story and how to make them" by Marie D Webster, published
in 1916, that I got from gutenburg.org.

The other called "Quilting Techniques for Beginners: learning how to
quilt" by Elizabeth Betts, published in 2013, that I got from amazon.com
as a free book.

I don't know if it is still available for free because I think that
amazon takes a selection of their books, offers them for free for some
amount of time, then makes a bunch of other books available for free, but
the ones that are on their free offer usually don't have a very high
price anyway.

I don't really need a book for basic quilting techniques, but my interest
in downloading them was in comparing a quilting book from today with one
from about a century ago.

The first difference, which I think had more to do with the authors style/
intent rather than when they were written is that the older book spends 4
chapters talking about the history of quilting, from "Patchwork in
Antiquity" (ch 1) to "The Quilt in America" (ch 4).

The newer book does not have any sections on history, but goes right in
to the differences between hand piecing and machine piecing.

Another difference is in how the books are formatted and put together.

The newer book is much more profusely illustrated, and most (all?) of the
pictures are photographs rather than hand drawings.

The older book is sort of the opposite, with many of the pictures being
hand drawings.

Just looking at the language (and not how profuse the illustrations are),
a linguist might be able to tell which one was written within the past
few years and which one was written a century ago, but without specific
training in the specifics of language then vs. now, I don't think most
people could.

That being said, in the few places it actually pops up, the newer book is
much more "gender neutral" in its language.

The older book, when it talks about a specific person doing something, it
talks about a housewife or woman doing that thing, as in "The housewife
keeps busy,..." or "Pieced quilts make a special appeal to women who
delight...".

The newer book usually says such (or at least similar) things in the 2nd
person, usually as command or directive, as in "It is often portable so
you (rather than "the housewife")..." and "(you should) use thread in a
beige or grey colour..." rather than "the housewife should use thread in
a beige or grey colour...".

As to which book I liked better, I liked the older one because of the
chapters on history.

The actual content of the second did not hold much interest for me as I
don't have any real need to learn the basics of quilting (some pattern or
technique that is new to me would be a different story), and as I said, I
downloaded it to compare to the other book.

The older book is available from gutenburg.org, and is of course a free
download from there.

The newer one is available at amazon.com and I don't know if it is still
free, but the regular price of the books that make it to their free
offers usually isn't very much.

I also don't know if a hardcopy edition of this book is available, or if
it is just available as an ebook.

Brian Christiansen
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  #2  
Old September 7th 14, 10:14 PM posted to rec.crafts.textiles.quilting
AllisonH
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Posts: 8
Default old vs new quilting books

The first really "old" quilting book that I read was "Old Patchwork
Quilts and the Women Who Made Them" by Ruth Finley. It also has lovely
bits of history mixed in with advice about sewing a quilt. I actually
preferred her style of writing to the Marie Webster book.

It's been a while since I acquired it but I think I got it through
abebooks. Not as convenient as an ebook perhaps but I love the feel of
a really old book. Almost as good to fondle as fabric.



On 21/08/2014 11:03 PM, Brian wrote:
I have 2 different quilting books on my Kindle e-reader, one called
"Quilts/Their Story and how to make them" by Marie D Webster, published
in 1916, that I got from gutenburg.org.

The other called "Quilting Techniques for Beginners: learning how to
quilt" by Elizabeth Betts, published in 2013, that I got from amazon.com
as a free book.

I don't know if it is still available for free because I think that
amazon takes a selection of their books, offers them for free for some
amount of time, then makes a bunch of other books available for free, but
the ones that are on their free offer usually don't have a very high
price anyway.

I don't really need a book for basic quilting techniques, but my interest
in downloading them was in comparing a quilting book from today with one
from about a century ago.

The first difference, which I think had more to do with the authors style/
intent rather than when they were written is that the older book spends 4
chapters talking about the history of quilting, from "Patchwork in
Antiquity" (ch 1) to "The Quilt in America" (ch 4).

The newer book does not have any sections on history, but goes right in
to the differences between hand piecing and machine piecing.

Another difference is in how the books are formatted and put together.

The newer book is much more profusely illustrated, and most (all?) of the
pictures are photographs rather than hand drawings.

The older book is sort of the opposite, with many of the pictures being
hand drawings.

Just looking at the language (and not how profuse the illustrations are),
a linguist might be able to tell which one was written within the past
few years and which one was written a century ago, but without specific
training in the specifics of language then vs. now, I don't think most
people could.

That being said, in the few places it actually pops up, the newer book is
much more "gender neutral" in its language.

The older book, when it talks about a specific person doing something, it
talks about a housewife or woman doing that thing, as in "The housewife
keeps busy,..." or "Pieced quilts make a special appeal to women who
delight...".

The newer book usually says such (or at least similar) things in the 2nd
person, usually as command or directive, as in "It is often portable so
you (rather than "the housewife")..." and "(you should) use thread in a
beige or grey colour..." rather than "the housewife should use thread in
a beige or grey colour...".

As to which book I liked better, I liked the older one because of the
chapters on history.

The actual content of the second did not hold much interest for me as I
don't have any real need to learn the basics of quilting (some pattern or
technique that is new to me would be a different story), and as I said, I
downloaded it to compare to the other book.

The older book is available from gutenburg.org, and is of course a free
download from there.

The newer one is available at amazon.com and I don't know if it is still
free, but the regular price of the books that make it to their free
offers usually isn't very much.

I also don't know if a hardcopy edition of this book is available, or if
it is just available as an ebook.

Brian Christiansen


 




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