QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Thursday, May 23, 2013

Civil War Jubilee: A Shadowy Sprig




The document fabric for this reproduction print in my summer collection Civil War Jubilee
is from an old sawtooth star full of madder-style reds and browns, a few stripes and paisleys,


The center square was pieced together from scraps. The quilter didn't have enough
to make the square, or perhaps she cut this piece from a worn dress and just cut across the seam.
I love the shadowy nature of the floral with a crosshatched background.


Civil War Jubilee is a dark line and this is the darkest print in it.


The purplish prints would have been appropriate for clothing if one were in half mourning---

Queen Victoria wore half mourning
for four decades after her husband died.

Etiquette demanded a widow go into full mourning, wearing black for a year and then half-mourning in which she might wear dark colors and prints for another year.

Half mourning dresses
from Godey's in 1848

See a page about Victorian mourning dress at Michigan State University's site:

A Gibson Girl, a merry widow in half-mourning, 
by Charles Dana Gibson

And one more thing about this print: We dyed the background a dark color and then printed over it with an even darker color, so the back of the fabric can be used as a dark solid---
Two for one!



7 comments:

  1. Love this fabric and the cross hatch, definitely a nice fabric to use in a bed quilt.

    Debbie

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  2. When will it be out? This is a great print...my mind is already wandering with it!

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  3. Is scheduled for July 2013 deliver but precuts maybe next month.

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  4. Your line will arrive just in time for my need for purples in my next project, currently in the have-the-design, don't-have-the-fabric phase. Great!

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  5. Hi Barbara, love you blog and always enjoy your posts.

    I am working on a historical quilt at the moment, applique, dated 1790and am thinking a lot about which specific fabric colours and ranges to use.

    Can you recommend any of your books (and available fabrics) that would direct me into some authentic options?

    I have been reading about Georgian textiles but can't find detailed enough infomation to help me pick suitable options.

    I would be so grateful for any direction on this, Esther

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  6. Connection: My grandmother's home from 1920's on was Emporia and visiting Emporia every year has made it closest to being my own hometown. Census records show that Grandma lived only a short distance from Rose K. and Great Aunt Alma was on the same street. I own a pieced quilt top from G.Aunt Alma. She stitched quilt tops and sold them to have a little "pin" money, so Grandma bought a couple. I LOVE the name Emporia Rose and my aunt was also Rose (from Emporia).

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  7. I want to ask you about the origin of a quilt of mine.
    Do you have an e-mail address for the public?http://lindadrawingtime.blogspot.com/2012/10/october-mysteries-hoping-someone-can.html
    LmcHicks@aol.com

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