The Christmas Quilts

                                                                           

The red, white and green one was made by my great-grandmother, Alice Morris Wright, in Troy, Alabama. It's not dated and my grandmother, who gave it to me, didn't know much about it. It had been kept in a cedar chest and, so far as I know, never used.

This quilt is made of 9 large squares, each with the red and green motif appliqued on the white backing. Alice seems not to have been a particularly skilled seamstress -- but, to be fair, it's really hard to applique circles.

I'm guessing this was made before Alice was married -- maybe 1880-ish? After Alice was married, she had four children and also worked as a milliner and then as a buyer for an early department store in Troy before dying of Bright's disease in her fifties.

After Alice died, Aunt Georgia was a part of the household as my grandmother grew up. Aunt Georgia made a number of beautiful, quilts, all of which were used. This one of little red and white triangles is quilted with more tiny stitches than I care to think about.

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I look forward every year to bringing out these quilts to warm our spirits at Christmas -- and to remembering two women I never knew.

I asked my professional quilter friend Pepper Cory what she could tell me about these quilts. And she said:

"I think the applique quilt is some species of Coxscomb. The green calico was a classic print by Eli & Walker and was available from the 1880s right up into the 1970s. In the pictures, the red looks slightly smudged around the little circles and I wonder if this that might indicate a less than fast red. Or is the picture slightly blurry? I do know that when a chemical red dye was being developed, there were a lot of misses, the most famous being the fugitive red dye that quickly faded to tan. That was called Congo Red and named in 'honor' of that African country being annexed by Belgium in 1884. Your 1880 date is spot on.

"The other triangles quilt might be inter-generational. The red with black circles looks like a faded c.1900 print but the solid red on the scalloped border looks newer and of a different weave (thanks for the close-ups!). Maybe this top was made of earlier fabric and then made larger and finished in the 1920s or 30s when the scalloped border treatment was very popular."

A Sherlock of old quilts, Pepper is.

The Next Generation

This picture warmed my heart. On top of her nursing job and her mama-to-Josie job, Claui found time to organize a baby quilt for a friend in Kentucky. Various friends created squares and Claui put the quilt together and quilted it. Then drove to Kentucky where other friends had gathered for a shower for the new baby. 

The next generation is carrying on the tradition my friend Karol and I wrote about.

Here's another Claui did a few years back.

And these two I organized for my niece's babies; Claui and her friends did squares.

The beat goes on!

Quilt Closeups from the Easter Party . . . and Links to Albums

When I got down to the barn yesterday morning, the cleanup crew was hard at work -- all had travel plans and had to be flying back to California or driving to Virginia.

The quilts were down and neatly folded . . .

 But I got some not-so-great pictures of the smaller quilts for those of you who wanted to see more -- not good lighting, weird angles -- but you can get an idea of the intricacy of the piecing.

                                                             

  

Some of the quilts were unfinished . . .

It would be a rare person who left this world with no unfinished business . . .

HERE is a link to a web album of pictures from the Saturday pre-party

and THIS is a link to a web album of pictures from Easter Day.

About That Basket . . .

So this is what I use my grandmother's basket for -- to hold the elements of a little talk I used to do in the lower grades of our local schools, back when I was starting to be known as 'The Quilt Lady."

I'd bring in a bunch of quilts and talk about them and ask the kids about quilts they might have at home.  I'd hand out these pictures of quilt blocks for the kids to identify and color. And I'd tell them a story about Rachel, a little girl who lived in our county about a hundred years ago -- a little girl who wanted to make a quilt for her doll, Grace Greenwood.

I'd show them how Rachel traced around templates and cut out her quilt pieces and sewed them together by hand.

And I'd show them Rachel's doll and the  quilt Rachel made with scraps from her mother and sister's sewing (left unfinished on one edge to show its construction.) By the way, those are my grandmother's sewing scissors in the picture.

But what was the original use of the basket? I hear someone asking.

Well, I believe it was used to hold feathers -- feathers plucked from butchered chicken/ducks/geese and used to fill pillows and bed ticks. 

Here's a LINK to a Shaker feather basket that looks very similar.(Scroll down to number 219.)

Airing the Quilts - Part 2

Here are the better pictures -- the ones I found in a forgotten scrapbook. 

The quilter -- whose name I either never got or failed to remember, was quite shy and posed for her picture a little reluctantly.

I would have loved to have gotten to know her but though she answered my questions about the quilts, I could tell she was a little puzzled about my intentions.

And though she didn't live much more that four or five miles from me, when I mentioned the names of some of my neighbors, she'd never heard of them. 

But, oh, my, what a treasure trove of quilts!

I wish I knew where they ended up.

With someone who appreciates all the work that went into them, I hope.

But here's to you,  Miss Lady in the stone house and your quilts -- you made my day all those years ago.

Gone, but not forgotten.