Document Print and Reproduction: Magnolia

Document Print for Magnolia in Arnold's Attic

The packages Arnold has sent me over the years are filled with swatches and notes. The print called "Magnolia" has a paper tag that Arnold stitched to it:

"When washed the background faded to a purple and the green in the leaves to a bluish shade."

Dyes were unreliable in the era when his Aunt Alice was buying cotton prints like the one above. The mills were experimenting with new test-tube formulas and the new shades often changed color or completely disappeared after washing or a few hours of sunlight.

I don’t know the original color in those decorative little leaves but I loved the shade of blue we see now. The blue became one of the basic colors in the collection. We added a pinstripe to the background in the print for more detail and printed it in two blues, Augusta red and Minerva green. Those color names and the print name Magnolia come from the townships, the county and other places in Arnold's neighborhood.

One hundred years later our test-tube dyes are a lot more reliable, but I think the document print's fading above was a happy accident. Below a quilt using the blue colorways in Arnold's Attic

Ohio Autumn by Georgann Eglinski

Georgann used charm packs and yardage to make this four-patch strip quilt.

The precut packages are in your quilt shops now.