Evans Quilt Collection at MESDA

Simple basket block in a purple zig-zag or fence rail set.

Beverley Evans Collection

Beverley & Jeff Evans showed some of their own collection of Shenandoah Valley quilts last

weekend at the Museum of Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolian.

Merikay Waldvogel, Lorie Stubbs and Beverley Evans.

Look at the scale on that doll quilt.

The whole event, the MESDA spring seminar Stitching a Southern Identity: Defining Female Culture in the Early South, was entertaining and educational. We saw samplers, needlework pictures and period rooms but for some of us the quilts were the high point.

Beverley has quite a collection.

A few details

I learned the importance of the Pennsylvania German history of the Shenandoah

Valley with early migration down the Great Wagon Road. This quilt certainly

speaks of that relationship, but it isn't as early as it looks at first glance.

The dark paisley squares inside the bright chrome yellow are

that style of black ground novelty print that you see about 1900. 

Interesting variation on the lily block

A Shenandoah Valley sampler.

Maryland isn't too far away.

Cats peeking into the border corners

Matt Monk, Sheldon, Merikay and Barb Garrett. Matt gave a paper

on a Baltimore Album style sampler in Bev's collection.

Above, one of these bold coxcombs

bordered by an eagle in platform shoes.

I recognized this bird. See a post here:

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2016/07/a-gawky-eagle-and-coxcomb.html

The quilt on top is dated in the quilting

Surprisingly, it's 1842.

We'd have never guessed the date from the prints.

The Evanses sell a lot of quilts on their auction site.

Click on this link to see some of the quilts auctioned over the years.

https://www.jeffreysevans.com/auctions/results/eyJyZXN1bHRfcGFnZSI6ImF1Y3Rpb25zXC9yZXN1bHRzIiwia2V5d29yZHMiOiJxdWlsdCIsInNlYXJjaF9tb2RlIjoiYW55IiwibGltaXQiOiIxMCIsImNvbGxlY3Rpb24iOiIxIn0