Quilt Stories . . .

This is the other side of all those squares of newspaper I showed you yesterday -- a string-pieced quilt top. I was amazed when one of my students passed on two antique quilt tops to me, saying she had no place to display them. Thank you so much, Dannie!

 This quilt, as a date on one of the newspapers tells us, was at least partially pieced in 1961 -- or after. Sometimes a quilt gets worked on over a long period of time and even by several generations.

Some of the newspaper squares are dated 1959 -- and looking at the quilt it seems as if two different tastes at work -- subdued and subtle in the upper left corner and then there's all that red in the center and orange on the right. Of course it could well be the same seamstress who got a sudden influx of bright colors in her scrap bag when the Sixties hit -- perhaps she was sewing for a teenage granddaughter. The essence of string quilts is economy -- use what you have.

Here's a LINK to a tutorial explaining how string piecing is done. Fun and easy -- and usually one tears the paper away before adding batting and a back. But I'm in love with the historical aspect -- the prices, for instance -- and will likely display the quilt newspaper side out.

Then there was the other quilt top -- beautiful pinks and greens that make me think of the Twenties, carefully handstitched together . . .

Lots of solids and some of what looks like feed sack material . . . Look at that sweet flowered pink , . . . swastika?

 As it happens, the swastika was a widely used good luck symbol in many cultures and there are many examples of swastika quilts made before ever the Nazis adopted the symbol. I can just imagine someone beginning this quilt in the Twenties or Thirties and then sadly laying it aside rather than finishing.

HERE is the story of a similar quilt.

Making a Start

Getting ready for Christmas involves a lot of deconstruction: taking down paintings and objets that I consider part of the fall decor, stripping the throw pillows of their autumn leaf fabric covers, moving house plants upstairs to make room for the tree, taking down the somber hued quilts that have been on display since September . . .

And then there's the unpacking of the Christmas odds and ends that all have to be put in their traditional places -- starting with the gaudy red and green and white quilt made by my great-grandmother.

John will get the tree today and it'll get put up and the lights draped around it. But it won't be decorated till Sunday when friends and family assemble to string popcorn and cranberries and eat chili and cornbread. (I made the chili yesterday.)

The packages for out of town mailing are ready -- so I'm off to the P.O. There's greenery to cut and a door swag to arrange and more presents to wrap and maybe I need some poinsettias . . .

The Christmas Quilts

The time has come.

I put away the blues and browns, rusts and golds of autumn and bring out my treasured '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, a pattern that I can't identify, 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.

I'm going to ask Pepper the quilter to look at these and see what she can tell us. I know a little about dating by fabrics and styles but hate to make pronouncements. (Is that Turkey red in those little triangles?)

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

(Ethan update: He continues to improve but is still on the heavy duty shot-in-the-belly blood thinner till the other meds kick in. He's at home and getting work done but has to go in for blood work twice a week. Many thanks to all who've sent good wishes!)

And this update from Pepper: "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.