"Labor of Love" or a "Consumer Trend?
Crazy Quilts, especially the really elaborate and skillfully
embroidered pieces, have long been considered
the pinnacle of late-19th-century handwork.
How those women could sew!
Note the brownish outline around the bird, stitches attaching the "slip" to the silk.
Hummingbirds (?) with speckled breasts: 2 Different Quilts
A good many of those embroidered vignettes were purchased and what's more---they were machine-embroidered. Kursheedt's in New York was one of the big commercial sources for the pictorials. They held the patents on the embroidery machines.
"If ladies have no time to embroider...they will find the Kursheedt's embroidered color silk appliques most convenient."
"Mother" probably died in 1880; her memorial stitched later with
some trendy purchases among the patchwork.
Over at our 6KnowItAlls:ShowUsYour Quilts Facebook page we were looking at inscriptions last month and discovered something as a group. The elaborate monograms and dates on some crazy quilts also could be purchased in various forms. One could buy a stencil, a template or a machine-embroidered letter finished on a piece of silk taffeta or velvet.
A felt or flannel (?) letter to embroider around.
A Template
Textile dealer Nancy Hahn had just purchased some:
"Crowley's Fibre Letter Foundations,"Crowley's Department Stores in Chicago and Detroit, 1920-1950. I made a few completed samples to display, as I'm selling the individual monograms in my antique shop. I basted the forms onto my background fabric and then hand stitched a satin stitch using pearl cotton. After experimenting with the 1st one, they became easier to do and each looked better than the last."
These are forms or templates that one could embroider over while attaching them to a background.
But---like the hummingbird above: Could you buy finished initials either as slips to attach to a background or as finished machine embroidery on a fabric background to cut to fit in your crazy quilt?
I searched in newspapers, magazines and online auctions for words like: "monogram---initial---crazy quilt" and found two copies of this catalog The Initial House from G. Reis and Bro. who would sell you embroidered monogram initials, which is probably what we have been seeing on crazy quilts for years, believing the quiltmaker stitched them.
"Nora Sister (18)86"
Once you know the words to search for you find a lot of evidence for the existence of machine-sewn letters and numerals. In 1910 Reis gave us names for the product: "Padding Letters, Skeleton Letters, Embroidery Forms, Foundation Letters and Embroidery Foundations."
Hand embroidered? Or ordered from a factory that machine embroidered to order?
Terms like Skeleton Letters and Embroidery Forms make one wonder if they are also talking about templates, machine-cut letters that you attached to your background and then satin-stitched over the skeleton.
Carol Leather found some British letter forms and tried it. Quite a nice look.
Luann Pfost summarized it for us and showed us some magazine pages:
"Starting in the late 1870s perforated patterns and hot iron transfers of such alphabets were easily purchased from any needlework store. At the time manufacturers used the same machine to make both. This allowed several options for needle-workers
#1 take your material to a printer or artist to be stamped.
#2 buy material that already has been stamped , embroider it then applique.
#3 buy pre made appliqué and sew it on.
#4 buy a hot iron transfer to stamp your fabric with.
#5 buy a stencil (perforated patterns are a type of stencil) and stamp your own.
#1 take your material to a printer or artist to be stamped.
#2 buy material that already has been stamped , embroider it then applique.
#3 buy pre made appliqué and sew it on.
#4 buy a hot iron transfer to stamp your fabric with.
#5 buy a stencil (perforated patterns are a type of stencil) and stamp your own.
#6 use a copy method to draw or trace onto your material."
Peggy Norris: "It occurs to me that some of the thrifty women would have taken a cue from the commercial product and cut out their own."
Why don't we use "Skeleton letters" to make slick embroidered labels?
They may not sell them any more, but we could make our own. Crafts shops sell plastic stencils for fancy lettering. You could buy a set, trace your initials and/or date onto flannel or pellon, cut them out and satin stitch over them.
No templates here!
Now, some readers are not too happy with the "No Santa Claus" idea in crazy quilt embroidery. Quilts are just so emotionally linked---Sentimentalists cannot bear to think of commerce dictating style. But it does.
Alden O'Brien tells us she's always been skeptical about the presence of impressive hand embroidery on crazy quilts, knowing that few women at the time (1880-1925) were well-versed in the techniques.
Most of us would have little trouble distinguishing a possible machine-embroidered slip from a hand-guided, hand-embroidered inscription.
Debby Cooney Post
Well, not always.....
Applique over Skeleton Letters?
See a post: more
https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2023/04/crazy-embroidery-4-kursheedts-embroidery.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawL0doZleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFCWkZzYVZDaTZQZVRBQzRQAR5DDedP6WtDx8vk97XfeTHpPn7Dr_LB2iy06urvoaqgTPKM-LMHxnXRf9jB5g_aem_PUFSDFzhcKfMNuR6O4S88Q
https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2023/04/crazy-embroidery-4-kursheedts-embroidery.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawL0doZleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFCWkZzYVZDaTZQZVRBQzRQAR5DDedP6WtDx8vk97XfeTHpPn7Dr_LB2iy06urvoaqgTPKM-LMHxnXRf9jB5g_aem_PUFSDFzhcKfMNuR6O4S88Q
You have not burst any bubble of mine! It's kind of a relief to know that not every stitcher in the late 19th century was profoundly proficient.
ReplyDeleteNann---I am going to make myself some skeleton numbers and letters and use the technique.
ReplyDeleteInteresting! Now I'm wondering...(eek - she's at it again!)...I have instruction books put out by Singer that show how to machine embroider using a straight stitch only machine, manually moving the fabric side to side for each stitch. I wonder how many of those embroidery details were done that way. There seems to be enough "wobble" in some of the embroideries shown here to indicate that possibility. It seems like it would be a laborious and slow process, but if someone had *lots* of practice, I can see it taking longer to switch thread colors in some of those designs than to do the actual stitching.
ReplyDeleteMight there have been a home-based industry for making & selling such patches, especially for a custom design?
Hello Barbara. Thank you for this interesting post. In all of your studies, how does this correlate with the fact that girls learned to make samplers in school, as well as doing needlework at home to sew and mend clothing. In other words, is there a time frame when hand sewing/fine needlework either tapered off or was relegated to the lower class, etc. I'm thinking of the character, Marmee, in the book, "Little Women", when she had to re-use thread from an older garment when doing mending for someone. That sentence stuck with me, as I knew when I read it that older thread is harder to work with.
ReplyDeleteThis is truly a fascinating topic. Thank you for bringing it up.
San / Gypsy Quilter Designs
Different Generations; different educations; different ways of determiningone's self-worth.
ReplyDeleteNow you have me wondering about all the embroidery stitches along each patch edge. Often there is a lot of color change which to me would be easier by hand. My pillow project was my only attempt at crazy quilt and I thought I would be cheating to use my fancy machine stitches. Though sometimes controlling the machine is as difficult for me as hand stitches.
ReplyDeleteThey liked variegated colored thread. I am still thinking the seam covering linear stitches were done by hand by the maker. They are easier to do and were as good embroidery teaching design.
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