As Laura Cumming writes about Paris 1924, "The show fizzes with surprises. Here is Alexander Calder’s lithe wire figure of the American tennis champion Helen Wills balancing on one toe to return a ball, like a sketch in midair". At the 1924 Olympics, Helen Wills (1905-98) won gold in the singles and gold in the doubles with her coach, Hazel Wightman. She was the first American woman athlete to become a global celebrity, and was admired for her grace and fluidity, captured here in this wire sculpture made in 1927.

One of the stars of the Paris 1924 exhibition is Lucy Morton, seen here in the 200m breaststroke race in which she won the gold medal, despite being involved two days earlier in a traffic accident in which she lost five teeth. The year before she was working full-time in the post office at St Anne's, Lancashire, and Blackpool council opened the local baths for her so she could train before and after work. She returned home to cheers from the 10,000 people lining the streets and a civic reception at Blackpool's town hall where she was presented with a piano.

We have the Olympics this week. Paris 1924, an 'enthralling exhibition', has just opened at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge to excellent reviews. It makes clear that these Games were a turning point in so many ways, and yet female competitors were limited to just four events (swimming, diving, tennis, fencing), and the only time they were in the Olympic Stadium was during the opening ceremony (members of the GB team, above). 

The three Brontë sisters and Jane Austen also made patchwork quilts, but we are ending with  Susan Glaspell who, if she didn't quilt herself, certainly knew how patchworks were made. Trifles (1916) is a play which Glaspell later adapted into the short story, A Jury of Her Peers (1917) in which everything hinges on a certain way of finishing a log cabin quilt (late C19 example above), but to say more would be to give away too much. So we simply recommend reading one or both.

Beth Gutcheon (b1945, pictured here c1973) is another Persephone author-quilter. She has written several best-selling novels including Still Missing, and is also a quilting expert. She gained instant fame amongst quilters with her first book, The Perfect Patchwork Primer (1973), which was followed up with The Quilt Design Workbook (1976), co-written with her husband, Jeffrey Gutcheon.

Tracy Chevalier learnt the art of quilting as research for her novel The Last Runaway (2013) which tells the story of an English girl who emigrates to America in the 1850s. As she said in this interview, She says, “Quilting is a leisure activity these days but 150 years ago it was a necessity. Houses were freezing cold and people needed blankets to stay warm. My main character moves into a Quaker community but holds on to quilting as a continuity of her previous life in England. American women also sewed and she starts to characterise them by how they cut cloth and design their patterns. You are not meant to read the book and take up quilting – it’s just a common theme through the story.”

Lucy M. Boston (1892-1990), author of the Green Knowe books for children, wrote in the summer and made exquisite patchwork quilts in winter. Green Knowe is based on the ancient Manor at Hemingford Grey where Lucy M. Boston lived; it is open to visitors who wish to see the beautiful garden, house, and her quilts.