Saturday, March 30, 2013

31. Tinted Chains: Click

Tinted Chains by Becky Brown

"The fact is women are in chains and their servitude is all the more debasing because they do not realize it." Susan B. Anthony, 1872

Anthony realized that the fight for women's rights required a change in women's attitudes before there would be any social change. A century later Ms. Magazine created the code words "The Click," to define that flash when a woman realizes the psychological chains that have governed her self-image, role, and behavior. In Ms.'s first issue Jane O'Reilly wrote about "The Housewife's Moment of Truth," when the traditional husband/wife roles finally catch up with the reality of two working parents. 

The first issue of Ms. 
Spring 1972

That article's success led publishers Gloria Steinem and Letty Cottin Pogrebrin to create a section where women described their self-defining "clicks." Susan B. Anthony would probably have been pleased.

Cartoon by Merle DeVore Johnson

Tinted Chains is a way of shading a familiar pattern of squares to create a directional design, given that name in the Chicago Tribune's Nancy Cabot quilt column of the 1930s 

(BlockBase # 2815c)

Here I've taken the basic repeat and given you measurements for the 8" & 12" blocks. That BlockBase number is #2775b; the pattern is Unnamed.

Tinted Chains from Cookie'sCreek

Shade the fabrics to get the vertical effect.

 Cutting an 8" Finished Block
12" in Red

The blue measurements are for the 8" block,  slightly larger when the BlockBase default is set to 1/16".
A - Cut 2 squares 2-7/8". (3-7/8").


B - Cut 1 square 5-1/4". (5-3/16") (7-3/16")

Cut with 2 diagonal cuts to make 4 triangles.

C -- Cut 5 squares 3-3/8".  (3-5/16") (4-3/4")

Tinted Chains by Becky Brown
Becky emphasized the verticality of the design with a  directional pillar print.

Twisted Chains by Dustin Cecil
Dustin shaded it in a whole different manner.

Woman, the light of the home, is a human generator creating a reading light 
and a breeze for her relaxing husband with her activity
in this 1879 Punch cartoon.

Tinted Chains by Georgann Eglinski


  1. That change in attitude was known in the 70's as "consciousness raising". Still needed sometimes.

  2. Sometimes it seems to me all women did was change the "drudgery" of home, fashion and garden for the "drudgery" of office, overwork, and lack of respect.

  3. DesertSkyQuilts - you are so right that office work can be as much drudgery as work at home -- all depends on whether or not appreciated. The difference I can see is that at least with unappreciated drudgery outside the home there is a paycheck at the end of the week, however unfairly paid, and no divorce is needed to change to a better working situation.