QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Friday, May 8, 2020

Chimney Sweep Quilts Over 36 Years

1882

This block is often called Chimney Sweep because that's what Ruth Finley called it in her very influential 1929 book. Another name is Album as the blocks often featured names and occasionally dates.

1883

I've arranged dated-inscribed examples from 1880 to 1920.
The overall views give us ideas about set styles and color fashion.

1884

The example above seems typical of the brown and pinks
fashionable in the 1880s. New browns in bronzey, golden colors
were quite fashionable for cotton prints in the 80s.

1885

But somewhere in the 1880s taste began to change.

1884 - 1886

1888

Blues became the fashion.

1889
1891
And then blacks, grays and the new wine red, colors synthesized with modern dyes.

1891 - 1892

Brown was no longer the primary palette. 


1894
Older dyes like Turkey red and indigo blue were
also synthesized in those years, making the classic shades cheaper and
more accessible.

1895
The standard sets: either on the straight or on point--- separated by white sashing.

1895 - 1898
Blocks on point.

1896
Some of the newer dyes were unreliable. Note the fading red in one block.
Those pale orange blocks may once have been a bright red.
There were probably a lot more greens when these quilts were new
but the green dyes of the era were prone to fade to tan.

1896
Sashing was important.
Each of these three quilts has color loss in the reds.

1896

1897

1897

1899

1900

Comparing these to the earlier quilts at the top of the page
reveals a significantly different color style, particularly in the blocks.

1901

1904

1906

1907

1908

1906 - 1909


1910
1911

1911

1913
Zig Zag or Fence Rail sets were a kind of strip set.

1916
It is interesting how many years this color style persisted.

1916
Shredding brown sash.

1917 - 1918
The design cold be used for a Red Cross, a new
fashion during World War I.

1918

1918

What have we learned?

If I were trying to date a quilt that looked like this I'd feel pretty
confident about estimating 1890-1920 
The style was remarkably consistent.

5 comments:

  1. So interesting to see so many Album quilts one after the other like this. I always learn so much from your posts. Thank you Barbara!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks so much for sharing. I'm a chimney sweep and title sure caught my eye and so did the quilts.They are marvelous.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I was hoping you would give us a pattern for this one.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Amazing how long that block was popular with almost no change, and that people are still using it today for album quilts!

    ReplyDelete
  5. A GREAT SPELL CASTER (DR. EMU) THAT HELP ME BRING BACK MY EX GIRLFRIEND.
    Am so happy to testify about a great spell caster that helped me when all hope was lost for me to unite with my ex-girlfriend that I love so much. I had a girlfriend that love me so much but something terrible happen to our relationship one afternoon when her friend that was always trying to get to me was trying to force me to make love to her just because she was been jealous of her friend that i was dating and on the scene my girlfriend just walk in and she thought we had something special doing together, i tried to explain things to her that her friend always do this whenever she is not with me and i always refuse her but i never told her because i did not want the both of them to be enemies to each other but she never believed me. She broke up with me and I tried times without numbers to make her believe me but she never believed me until one day i heard about the DR. EMU and I emailed him and he replied to me so kindly and helped me get back my lovely relationship that was already gone for two months.
    Email him at: Emutemple@gmail.com  
    Call or Whats-app him: +2347012841542

    ReplyDelete