Quilt As You Go

Nancy Bryan sent photos of an antique quilt she bought a while ago.

A popular nine-patch (BlockBase # 1645) with a lot of names:

• Double Monkey Wrench
• Churn Dash
• Shoo Fly 

Sashed with green calico. She wanted to share the pictures because it was, as she said, "Quilt As You Go."

The sashing pattern repeats on the reverse.

She had no idea the technique went back this far.

Each block has been individually quilted and then machine bound with green calico.

The finished blocks were then whip-stitched together by hand.

My first thought: A Civil War Soldiers's Aid Society Quilt. Several surviving examples were done using this finishing method.

But no. The fabrics are too late. That minty green on white and vivid blue are so 1880s.

(Do notice the top blue print above is a variation of Lane's Net---no clue to date, but interesting.)

Many of the fabrics offer few clues. Green calicos and madder browns---19th century---too broad a range.

The quilting is done by machine too---there's some wear to fabric and quilting.

The best clue to date is those bright blue prints. It's not from the 1860s but twenty years after the Civil War.

Nancy thought she might have bought it in Pennsylvania as it was in a file labeled Hershey Trip, but when I asked her about it (I was surprised to hear Pennsylvania) she remembered she'd bought it in Connecticut.

That makes perfect sense. In her paper on these "Potholder Quilts" Pamela Weeks noted that of the 76 quilts done in the technique for which she had a source, 78 percent were attributed to New England.

Soldiers' Aid Quilt with each block

 individually quilted and bound

in the current exhibit at the Wadsworth Atheneum

Seamstresses making quilts for Union soldiers during the Civil War were encouraged to use this method. Some of the quilts went to hospitals (those quilts are probably long gone) but a few were sold at auctions to raise funds, and several have survived. Pam Weeks and Don Beld have a new book out Civil War Quilts with more information about these soldier's quilts. Click here:
http://www.schifferbooks.com/newschiffer/book_template.php?isbn=9780764339363

The Sanitary Commission stamp on the quilt.

These quilts, often called Potholder Quilts today, were shown last year in an exhibit at the New England Quilt Museum. See more about One Foot Square, Quilted and Bound, curated by Pamela Weeks by clicking here:
http://nequiltmuseum.org/past-exhibitions.html

You have an opportunity to see the quilt above in Hartford this spring.

Colts & Quilts: The Civil War Remembered curated by Lynne Z. Bassett

"The exhibition captures intimate reactions by the American public to pivotal political and military events. Costumed vignettes, paintings, sculpture, Colt firearms and decorative arts from the collection narrate stories of the anti-slavery movement, war-time volunteerism, mourning and reconciliation."

Closes May 6, 2012

http://www.thewadsworth.org/exhibitions/

See a blog post about it by a volunteer at the museum:

http://fitsandstartsvintage.blogspot.com/2011/12/colts-quilts-civil-war-remembered-at.html

See a terrific Picasa album with details of the Wadsworth Atheneum quilt here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/context441/ConText20112USSanitaryCommQuilt#

Read two papers on the topic of this method in the American Quilt Study Group's annual publication.

Pamela Weeks, "One Foot Square, Quilted and Bound: A Study of Potholder Quilts," Uncoverings 2010, Volume 31

Loretta B. Chase and Jan Coor-Pender Dodge "The Dublin Quilt: A Civil War Textile Document," Uncoverings 2011, Volume 32

Buy the volumes here from the American Quilt Study Group
http://www.americanquiltstudygroup.org/uncoveringsList.asp