QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Monday, June 6, 2011

Birds in Applique

I've posted about cats on quilts so to be fair here are some birds found in antique applique quilts. They are found in borders as with the blue and red bird above from a quilt in the collection of the New England Quilt Museum. See the whole quilt by clicking here on this Quilt Index file
http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=21-41-82



Karla Menaugh and I made a picture file of birds for our book Juniper & Mistletoe, which was really about trees, but we found several great birds in the trees.


Birds don't take much in the way of applique as in this border from a quilt dated 1842


Here's a minimalistic bird from a top about 1900


And a worn border from a mid-19th-century quilt


Birds often appeared in blocks
Especially in samplers





Scale seems to be a problem in this sampler with a giant bird in the bottom row.

Here's a lovely crib quilt with a variety of birds and bugs from an online auction.

See more by clicking on these links.

From the Quilt Index, New Jersey, probably from the 1860s, a sampler with some strange blocks and two bird blocks
Another Quilt Index photo, this one from the Connecticut Quilt Project, with some long-beaked birds towards the bottom
http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=47-7B-D9 
An Irish Chain with birds in the alternate blocks
http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4B-82-391
From the International Quilt Study Center & Museum, a fairly recent quilt by Sarah Mary Taylor, #2005.060.0001
http://cdn.firespring.com/images/197ccef6-5f11-487e-9fa4-b5ccbab67938.jpg
Dealer Stella Rubin has an unusual 19th century example


And for more about our book Juniper & Mistletoe click here

5 comments:

  1. I love doing birds in quilts. They just seem to go with everything and it is fun to try different fabrics with them.

    Debbie

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  2. Love the bird in the quilt just below "especially in samplers"; are there any more pictures or info on that one?

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  3. I love bird images and enjoyed this post. Thanks!

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  4. What a fun post. I love adding birds to my applique' quilts and it was fun to study these.

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  5. I love doing birds in quilts. They just seem to go with everything and it is fun to try different fabrics with them. Debbie

    ReplyDelete