School Colors

I finished this quilt last week, after working on it for at least ten years, but likely longer. I first saw quilts done in the pattern at a quilt show in the early 2000s. A group of women had each made a quilt using Civil War reproduction fabrics in browns as specified by the pattern designer (“Ancient Stars” by Susan Garman,  2001). The displayed quilts were stunning, and I was drawn to the pattern. I have an affinity for antique quilts and entertained the idea of making one. The thought was not one I pursued, until years later the quilt pattern was donated to our guild garage sale, and I managed to snag it. Thus began a very long journey, complete with missteps, frustrations, and quandaries.  

The first choice to make was the color pallet. I honestly don’t know why I chose modern pinks, nor why I picked gray instead of brown. As this was well over 10 years ago, it was not because gray was the current “in” color in decorating. In all likelihood I happened to have some pieces that complimented pink fabrics I had on hand, and thus I started the years-long journey with pink and gray, picking up more fabrics as needed. There were years the project was put away and left to gather dust. And I recall one phase where I thought about starting over as I really love pink and brown and what the heck was I thinking??

Back in the 1980s when “color theory” was the rage, my mother and I had our “colors done”. She was a Winter and I was a Fall. For a number of years she made me beige clothing as it was “my” color. Dear lord do I look half dead in beige. It may be my color but it doesn’t do a thing for me - I blend away into nothing. Even my husband banned me from the color, and my friends have long known to steer me away from beige clothing when we’re out shopping. Brown, however, looks great with my coloring. And since black is remarkably unflattering to me (being a “Fall”), brown has always been my go-to neutral. I honestly do not own a piece of black clothing, while my  mother, with her Winter coloring, lived in black and jewel tones.

Brown is considered a “warm” color, and falls on the color wheel as a very dark version of orange. It is the earliest known color used by humans to create art, using variations of earth pigments to draw on caves. The word “brown” shows up in English language as early as the year 1000. Brown, like most colors, has both positive and negative associations. While the negative have to do with poverty, the positives are “a sense of strength and reliability, as well as feelings of warmth, comfort and security.” (https://www.dunnedwards.com/pros/blog/the-color-brown).

Pink has its own associations, almost all to do with romance, feminine attributes and kindness. Amusingly, when my daughter was young, her older brothers would announce “We’re in the pink zone” whenever we were shopping for girl clothing or toys! Pink lands in the red section of the color wheel, and thus pink and brown are neighbors – being offspring of Red and Orange. This is known as “analogous” colors, and is considered a calming or harmonious color combination. Interestingly, when you add white to blue or green, you refer to the color as “light blue” or “light green”. When you add white to red, you call it “pink”, a term that cropped up in usage back in 17th century Renaissance Italy. Many folks know I love the color pink, and I often wear pink and brown. And have a brown car (though sadly without a pink interior). So here I am, a pink and brown girl, grumbling about my pink and gray quilt, and considering bagging the whole darn thing after having made a significant number of pieces.

Then the Covid lockdown hit, and boy was I happy to have a huge project to tackle. I began cranking through the center blocks, and making the one inch “½ square triangles” of the inner borders. For those of you not quilt oriented, the 96 center blocks are an ‘Ohio star’ pattern. It is composed of a 9 patch, meaning blocks in a 3 x 3 square. To create the star shape some of the blocks are divided into a “ ½ square triangle”. This involves diagonals and fractions (yuck, who likes fractions?!) so the easiest option is to make oversized blocks and trim down to the correct size. No fractions! But tedious. Same with all those one inch “½ square triangle” blocks running around borders, all 452 of them.

As is the case with many quilt blocks, the parts of an Ohio Star can be put together in various ways by spinning those triangles. Some variations result in an “Ohio Star” pattern, and others are completely different. When I finished the 96 blocks and began putting them up on my design wall, I realized a number needed to be redone. I cannot recall how many, but enough to cause swearing and grumbling. Clearly I went a little wild during Covid lockdown. Or at least as wild as a quilter can go. Sigh. Which is all well and good and rather creative, but made for a substantial amount of nausea when the blocks started going together. I have no issue with nausea if that is the artist’s intention, but in this case there was too much going on to add wonky blocks that didn’t “look” like Ohio Stars.

Redoing the blocks did not mean simply reusing the parts already made. Some had to be redone entirely which made me rather grumpy. On top of already being grumpy that I was not making the damn thing in pink and brown. Which would look lovely in our bedroom with our antique brass bed and butternut furniture, Mom’s pink Turkish rug, and our chocolate brown dressing room. But no, I was making a pink and gray quilt. So it got put away. Again.

At some point, having an ‘unfinished project’ gets on my nerves, and I make a “do or die” decision. If I love the piece, I have to finish it. Otherwise I pass it on in some way. So about 2 years ago I decided I needed to finish the damn thing. (While I do swear a lot in general, this quilt really rose my swearing language to a new level.) In an effort to embrace the gray, I began to think about the colors and where they surfaced in my memory. My alma mater, Vassar College, has a stunning stain glass window in the 1905 library. It is known as the Cornaro Window and depicts Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia (1646-84), the first woman in history to receive a doctorate, defending her thesis in Padua in 1678. She is wearing pink robes thank you very much. The original school colors, pink and gray, were chosen in 1867, representing the rose of sunrise breaking through the gray of women’s previous intellectual life. Elena with her pink robes stands as a stunning symbol of women’s right to learning. https://vassarcampushistory.vassarspaces.net/architecture/the-cornaro-window/.

While the colors were changed at some point to be maroon and white, those of us old enough still think of Vassar as pink and gray, with its remarkable focus on educating women. While my quilt may be done – in pink and gray – I wonder how history will look back on women, and their education, during this journey we are all currently on. Time will tell, as it often does. Elena – my granddaughter’s name!- will stand proud in her pink robes as we close in on 400 years of our journey, complete with missteps, frustrations, and quandaries.