Alice's Scrapbag: Grandpa's Banyan

Full Circle 78" x 78"

"Full Circle" is the official Moda kit for my latest Civil War era reproduction fabric Alice's Scrapbag.

Carrie from Miss Rosie's Quilts designed it. You can buy Full Circle as a pattern or a complete kit.

Carrie combined a few simple blocks that work well side-by-side.

She used every print in the repro collection.

I think I see some of "Grandpa's Banyan" in there.

It's a paisley in a grid set.

On the left above: The document print from Alice's original four- patch quilt that inspired the Moda collection.

On the right: A piece of the reproduction Grandpa's Banyan, plus a photo of a man dressed in his banyan or dressing gown.

Why did I name the paisley Grandpa's Banyan?

Amos Lawrence in a banyan, painting by Chester Harding,

Mid-1840s.

Collection: National Gallery of Art

Alice's Grandpa wasn't as rich as Amos Lawrence, nor did he own a fabric mill but the Pennsylvania farmer might have had a similar dressing gown or banyan.

Banyan made of wool woven in the style of Cashmere shawls

Banyan is an old-fashioned word for another old-fashioned word---

a dressing gown, our bathrobe.

But banyans were a little more formal

than a bathrobe. You received friends wearing

your banyan.

Or had your photo taken in one.

(How au courant is that hair????)

Here's a man's dressing gown in a cotton paisley print.

Paisley-style banyans were part of a mid-19th-century fashion for orientalism in the boudoir. Victorians loved the idea of eastern design from India, China and Japan in their private rooms.

A later, shorter variation was called a

smoking jacket.

Alice's original four-patch

Thus....

"Grandpa's Banyan"

The reproduction print comes in three period colorways.

Read more about a particular banyan here
https://aeveryday.omeka.net/exhibits/show/banyan/object

Ask your shop if they have any "Full Circle" kits or patterns in stock. Or do a web search for the four words
 Full Circle Alice's Scrapbag
to find a shop carrying the kit and pattern.