QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Monday, February 17, 2014

Ladies's Album Print: Love's Token

Love's Token from Ladies' Album

Each of the prints in my new Ladies' Album collection
for Moda is named for a sentiment one might find in an album quilt...

Signature with flourish from the Quilt Index


or a paper autograph album.


I've collected autograph albums and I've found many more great photos in online auctions.
I've also made notes on some of the inscriptions found in album quilts such as this one:

Please accept this as a
token of remembrance
from your friend
S. I. Robinson
May 23, 1845



I named each print in Ladies' Album after phrases I've seen, which
is where "Love's Token" got its name.

The largest print in the line, this one's a reproduction of a late 19th-century cretonne. Read more about floral cretonnes here:

Over the next few months I'll post more about the album sentiments and the album traditions.
Here's a nice rhyme from a quilt in the Oxford Connecticut Historical Society.

"May every blessing be thy lot
I only ask forget me not.


Mabel B. Hotchkiss              Bethany, Conn
A Gift of Friendship        Feb. 3, 1851"

"True Friendship
The earth can boast no purer air,
No brighter richer gem
No jewel of a lovelier die,
Than 'Friendships diadem.' 
Sarah E. [name unclear]
Belfast [Maine] March 26th 1858"

"Remember your friend
Nannie G. Reed
April 5th 1872"

"Presented to
Eugenia E. Bumgardner
by her mother
on the 15th anniversary
of her birth 1855 Aug 13"

See more of this quilt here at the online show Antebellum Quilts from the Upper Shenandoah Valley: 
It's quilt #21.
"Mrs Hannah Bliss, W. Rochester VT
When on this you view
Remember the aged maidens present to you."
View more signatures on this quilt:

"My album is a garden plot
Where all my friends may sow,
Where thorns and thistles flourish not
But flowers alone will grow.
Mary M. Criswell
Lower Oxford
March 13 1852
Chester County PA"


A simple sentiment from 1857.

7 comments:

  1. Lovely post of such beautiful fabric and so interesting about how you extracted the fabric names from autograph albums. It makes me want to get out the autograph 'books' I have from my G-Grandmothers and escape into the sentiments written so very long ago. Your research keeps history alive and inspires us all.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love the sentiments they wrote on the block and their handwriting. I never got the hang of nice script writing.

    Debbie

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love this! It's a lot like reading my mother's school autograph book.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm wondering what kind of ink and pen they would use for these autographs. Didn't they only have dip pens at the time?
    (Love your blog!
    Hugs

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'll write about the ink sometime in the next few weeks, but they used pens dipped in the ink.

    ReplyDelete
  6. OH how beautiful! Penmanship is said to be on the way out. HOW SAD! we all an album (visitor's type) over 120 years old. The notes, and penmanship is gorgeous. I feel elevated just seeing it!

    Thanks Barbara
    JulieinTN

    ReplyDelete