Show Off Piecing: Victoria's Crown

Victoria's Crown or Caesar's Crown

Show-off piecing from the 1840-1865 era.

I've been posting about Show Off Piecing this summer, vintage quilts that look appliqued but are actually pieced. One of my favorites is Victoria's Crown or Full-Blown Tulip, a popular design after 1830 or so.

The block itself is difficult to piece into a square. Most people would applique it but look for seams from the points into the edges of the block, indicating the block is all pieced. I digitally enhanced this block from a quilt in the collection of the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum and I see faint seams, which I've indicated with the black lines.

See the whole quilt here at the Quilt Index:

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4E-86-160

Piecing such a difficult block is not really Show Off Piecing---it's just good sewing skills. What makes some versions Show Off Piecing is the extra shapes pieced into the background like the quilt below. It's not just pieced blocks, it's sashing pieced into the background too.

Pieced Sashing, like Pieced Borders, is Show Off Piecing

This version on the cover of the catalog of the Royal Ontario Museum has a British sensibility in the color scheme, purples and pinks.

Whereas this variation from Wylie House Museum in Bloomington, Indiana has the classic German-American color palette. See another shot at this post at SewUniqueCreations.

http://sewuniquecreations.blogspot.com/2011/03/wylie-house-museum-quilt-exhibit.html

The name Victoria's Crown comes from Ruth Finley's 1929 book. The block she shows is in BlockBase ( #3648).

I modified it a little here making the curved pieces a bit easier to piece. Finley showed them extending right into the corners. I imported the pattern from BlockBase into Electric Quilt, went into the Drawing Board Set Up and made the Snap Grid for the block 144 x 144 so I had lots of points to hang the lines on. Then I grabbed the lines with the Shape drawing tool and pulled them in a little in the corners and added a small seam.

 16 blocks, 64" square, all pieced.

It's still too show-offy for me to try to piece but I love to figure out the patterns. Of course, a real show off wouldn't piece it as a block but would make those pairs of white pieces one piece.

Lots of the comments on these show-off piecing posts are "Why?"

Sampler from Pennsylvania's Quaker Westtown School, 1801

One option is that the patterns were from needlework teachers. In the pre-sewing-machine age a girl's education was measured by her skills at sewing. Schools were competitive. Would it not be smart for the teacher to have her students excel at show off piecing. Other girls might learn to applique a design, but a pieced version would set one's students above the rest. More parents would be willing to enroll their girls.

This 1813 sampler labeled Weston School

may also be from the Westtown School,

but spelling consistency was not so valued as the stitchery.

Stella Rubin has a show-off version of the Victoria's Crown for sale

http://www.stellarubinantiques.com/items/499043/enlargement499043sra.html

A quilt found in West Virginia with a different shape linking the crowns.

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=50-8A-912

Here's a pieced block with applique  between---a very imaginative applique.

http://www.historic-american.com/19thCenturyQuilts.html

See a post I wrote about the block pattern here:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2009/10/buff-and-blue-number-2.html

Show Off Piecing: Borders

 

Compared to Rose Trees seen in the last post on Show Off Piecing this pieced love apple is postively do-able.

The fruit is pieced; it looks like the stem and leaves are appliqued.

From the way the green is fading to brown I'd guess 1880-1910.

Here's another example---rounder. It's probably a little earlier, the quilting is closer, the green color is less fugitive and it has a border.

Is the border pieced too?

Pieced borders are the ultimate show-off piecing.

Dealer Laura Fisher sent a photo of a pieced rose from Tennessee with a swag border that also looks to be pieced. Notice that shape in the corners.

The dots are appliqued atop the swags pieced into the background. This mid-19th-century example is quilted with stuffed work (trapunto), another indication of a Tennessee quilt. Tennessee quilters did a LOT of stuffed work.

Here's a possible pieced border  from the Quilts of Tennessee files on the Quilt Index. Couldn't find a picture of the whole thing but here's the link:

http://www.quiltindex.org/basicdisplay.php?kid=4C-83-ABC

And a similar quilt I saw about ten years ago in an antique shop.

The swags and even that loop in the corner were pieced into the background. Talk about a Show Off.

There's a tiny embroidery stitch of thread, once green that's faded to white, linking the bud here to the swags in the corners.

Most swags are appliqued like the one above. Sometimes these triple swags are pieced together and then appliqued down.
But that's not really showing off. To be a real show off you have to piece the whole border into the background.

I'd like to see this online auction quilt closer. Those are the type of buds that could be pieced in.
I can't even imagine the kind of pattern that was passed around hand to hand in the 1850s.

Another online auction photo. Those looped corners on a Whig Rose---the border may be all pieced. One clue---it doesn't sit flat.

 I'm not going to try it. So much can go wrong.