Seven Sisters

First thing let’s circle back to Felix Alexander.

Despite all the reassurances from Dr. Lori, Felix did not get better.  He was not fine.  He continued not eating.  His first trip to the vet (Banfield of Greensboro, South – do not go there ever—they are awful) was on a Tuesday.  By Thursday he still had not eaten anything.  We were back to see Dr. Lori.  I was offered a new kind of food and an appetite stimulant.  I was cautioned if he still had not started eating, we needed an X-ray.  Friday he was a wee bit better, but still not eating.  Saturday evening he began crying in pain.  Sunday morning I was back on the phone with Dr. Lori and her office manager scheduled an X-ray at 11.  We were there on time.  His carrier was bagged and tagged for X-ray, and I was ushered into an exam room to wait for the doctor.  A few minutes later the vet tech came in and the first words out of her mouth were these:

“I have some bad news for you.”

Well it doesn’t take too many brain cells to figure out where my mind went.  Then she stated their X-ray machine had been down since Saturday.  And no one thought to tell me this BEFORE   I made the appointment? 

From there because Banfield’s ineptitude I had to go across town to Carolina Emergency Services.  First words out of their vet’s mouth were “Why wasn’t an X-ray done at the first appointment?”

Seriously.

Two sets of X-rays, blood and urine analysis, and an ultrasound scan later, we did find that Felix had eaten something.  And that something was lodged in the tiny space of a cat’s gut where the small intestines and large intestines meet.  The object was the perfect size to completely plug up that tiny space and that’s what was causing him so much pain.  It would need to be surgically removed.  Carolina Emergency Services’ surgery was booked, but they so, so, so helpfully found us another surgeon.  Enter Dr. Wendi Wells of the Animal Care Clinic of Rural Hall North Carolina.  She was waiting on us when we arrived with Felix on Tuesday – a full week after this saga began.  After a brief consultation, Felix was on his way to have the object removed.  He sailed through the surgery, recovered from the anesthesia and immediately perked back up to be his bright-eyed and bushy tailed best cat ever self.  He stayed over night is now currently residing in a large dog crate in my bedroom.  He has to stay confined and quiet and in the Cone of Shame for eight to ten days.  He hates that cone so much that I searched for alternative things to keep him from licking his stitches.  Amazon has this:

So I ordered a couple of them. 

He’s eating normally and is on really good pain meds for the next three days.   He’s high as a kite and living his best life.

Oh, and the object that was causing so much discomfort?  It was this:

As soon as I saw it, I figured out the mystery.  This is one of those wooden caps that fit over top of an exposed inset screw in some furniture.  One had fallen out of our kitchen chair.  It is the exact size and color of the Temptations Cat Treats we feed him.  He probably thought it was one and by the time he figured out it wasn’t, it was too late. 

Now the question is, will he eat those treats again?

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It has been a while since I wrote a blog about the history of a quilt or quilt block.  This week, I want to talk about this lovely block which makes a lovely quilt:

The Seven Sisters

This is a lovely block with set-in seams and one you would probably use templates for cutting everything out.  Yes, this is one of those labor-intensive quilts, but it has a cloudy history which can be cleared up if you believe it has references to either the Civil War or Greek mythology.  Let’s start with the Civil War first.

Nearly 164 years ago, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas seceded from the Union.  If you’re counting, that’s seven states which initially formed the Confederacy.  One of the first tasks this new union undertook was the design of a flag. 

The flag was similar to the Union Flag (what we know as the American flag), but the blue field held only seven stars.  The seven gold stars on a dark blue field of fabric looks almost identical to the Seven Sisters block. 

The gold stars on the blue background did not confine themselves only to flags.  The Seven Sisters-type block found its way onto women’s clothing and aprons, giving Southern women the chance to show their loyalty to the Confederacy even when their town may be occupied by the Union Army.  Most (if not all) of these Seven Sister-type blocks were appliqued, not pieced, most likely because it was easier and faster.  It wasn’t until the late nineteenth century that a pieced Seven Sisters block was designed. 

Just for fun let’s muddy the waters just a bit more – also during this time it was called Seven Stars, Seven Bright Lights, and Viriginia Pride.

Now let’s consider the Seven Sisters and the Greek mythology angle.  Some quilt historians believe the Seven Sisters quilt blocks refers to the Pleiades star cluster in Greek mythology, which is composed of seven visible stars, further supporting the connection to the star-shaped pattern. Pleiades, in Greek mythology, are the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas and the Oceanid Pleione: Maia, Electra, Taygete, Celaeno, Alcyone, Sterope, and Merope. They all had children by gods (except Merope, who married Sisyphus).

The Pleiades eventually formed a constellation. One myth recounts that they all killed themselves out of grief over the death of their sisters, the Hyades. Another explains that after seven years of being pursued by Orion, a Boeotian giant, they were turned into stars by Zeus. Orion became a constellation, too, and continued to pursue the sisters across the sky. The faintest star of the Pleiades was thought to be either Merope, who was ashamed of loving a mortal, or Electra, grieving for Troy, the city of Dardanus, her son with Zeus.

Since Greek mythology was studied and read during the nineteenth century, this version of the Seven Sisters is just as viable as the Confederate Flag theory.  Both quilters and non-quilters alike knew the story of the Pleiades and quilters could have easily designed a quilt block representing the story.

So which theory is correct?  Well, let’s not reach that conclusion until we research the block a bit more, and this time we’ll work with the name.  My Electric Quilt program (which also has Barbara Brackman’s Block Base) lists six blocks which go by the name “Seven Sisters” but for the sake of this blog we’ll only look at three – the other three blocks look nothing like the traditional Seven Sisters block.

This block:

Is not only known as Seven Sisters, but also Seven Stars (1989) and Seven Stars in a Cluster (Cappers Weekly, 1928).

This Seven Sister Block

Was christened with that name by Carrie Hall.

And this block

Is not only known as Seven Sisters, but also Spinning Spools (1990). 

Naming quilt blocks isn’t exact or uniform.  There was never a group of quilters who came together and decided on uniform names for all the blocks.  Unlike biology where you have sets and subset names which are consistently used throughout the scientific world, quilt block names are a verbal free-for-all.  One block can carry several names depending on the part of the world you’re at or the particular time period you’re in.  So for as much as this block is known as Seven Sisters, it actually wasn’t called that uniformly (more or less) until after the 1930’s.  The earliest reference this block has to the name we’re familiar with is in 1890 when The Ladies Art Company of St. Louis used the Seven Sisters tag in their early catalogs.

  By the 1930’s, Ruby McKim called the block Seven Sisters, and so did Eveline Foland when she sketched it for the Kansas City Star in 1930.  In 1935 Carrie Hall called it Seven Stars and wrote that the design offered “many possibilities and makes a very attractive quilt.”  However, in 1933, Nancy Page gave the block two names – Seven Sisters or Seven Great Lights. 

Needless to say, the name Seven Great Lights didn’t stick. 

One of the earliest references to the name Seven Sisters was in a March 13, 1933, Chicago Tribune article written by Nancy Page.  Page not only referred to the block as Seven Sisters, but also Seven Stars and Virginia Pride in honor of the seven lovely daughters of the old Virginia Fowler Family.  Which makes me wonder who were the Fowler Sisters and how did they rank getting their name on a quilt block?

So many names for seven stars set in a block.  However, in all my research (which I admit this week was limited due to my cat and his medical experience), I could find no link to either the Civil War or the Pleiades.  And the 1930’s were less than 100 years removed from the Civil War.  It does seem if there was some kind of link between the Confederate Flag and this block, someone somewhere would have left some kind of reference.  Or better yet actually remember it themselves.  So do I think the Seven Sisters block was influenced by the Confederate Flag?

Nope.

Do I think it was influenced by Pleiades?

Possibly. I think this idea has better footing than the flag.

What do you think?  Let me know!

Until Next Week,

Love and Stitches,

Sherri and the recovering Felix