Metropolitan Fair Reproduction Greens

There's a certain green that fans of old quilts recognize---a yellow green that is quite distinctive.

In the antique quilts it's really a rather accidental color---the result of greens dyed blue and yellow fading towards the yellow over the years.

The fabrics start out a more mid-green

But washing fades away the blues pushing the greens more and more yellow-green.

Lime green, we call it today.

My mother called it chartreuse.

Mid-19th century crib quilt

In my new Civil War reproduction fabric collection

 Metropolitan Fair we echo the yellow greens.

You couldn't call them lime green---more a tasteful olive.

I called this color Celery Salad as all the color names in this repro collection come from the menu at the fundraising fairs during the Civil War.

Someone chopped a lot of celery for that event

The Metropolitan Fair in Manhattan was the largest fundraising fair of the Civil War, benefitting the Sanitary Commission, which maintained Union soldier's hospitals. There were many other Sanitary Fairs in cities throughout the North.

Winterthur Museum has a menu from an 1864 fair.

Fairs were a traditional, acceptable way for women to raise money.

Above is a picture of the New England Kitchen at the Brooklyn Fair in 1864.

Women dressed in old fashioned costumes and cooked over an open hearth in one of the most popular features at a number of Fairs. The dining rooms were also good fundraisers.

See the menu from the Winterthur Collection here:
http://museumblog.winterthur.org/files/2012/05/Photo-3-Great-Central-Fair-Rest-menu-1864.jpg

And read a lot more about the greens in 19th-century quilts here
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2011/07/green-calicoes-antique-prints.html
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2010/01/poison-green.html
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2011/07/green-calico-reproductions.html
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2010/10/faded-greens.html

We used a lot of the greens in the Metropolitan Fair Project.

Read more here:

http://www.unitednotions.com/fcc_metropolitan_fair.pdf