Battle Hymn Flag Print

I called this flag print "Shiloh" after an 1862 Tennessee battle.

According to the National Park Service site:

"No soldier who took part in the two day’s engagement  at Shiloh ever spoiled for a fight again.”

The document print came from a very ragged comforter, a charm quilt made of hexagons. I had one piece of this patriotic print very much like the Sharpsburg Tan on the left. The only other piece worth saving in the comforter was a U.S. Grant presidential campaign fabric from the late 1860s or 1870s somewhat like this:

So I have dated the flag print as 1870s, like most of the prints in the tied comforter.

A few weeks ago I spent a few days sewing with my friend Bobbi who is making the Checkered Past pattern from a pack of fat eighths of 1862 Battle Hymn.

See the pattern with a photo of Bobbi's ancestor Hancy by clicking here:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2012/01/checkered-past-free-pattern.html

I bet she has the top done by now.

The quilt is similar to the Lincoln Museum Quilt that Deb Rowden and I did for the museum in Springfield, Illinois a few years ago.

We used plaids and stripes---sort of like this. It's a digital sketch.

 See more here:

https://www.pickledishstore.com/productDetail.php?PID=945  

Dustin's Add A Border

I've made a lot of BFF's on the Civil War block Flickr pool, among them Dustin who set up a Flickr page for that group.

I notice he has another Flickr group, The Add-A-Border pool.

You'd better take a look.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/add-a-border/pool/

Keckley Quilt on Display

You have the rare chance to see this quilt made by Elizabeth Keckley, which is on display at

Kent State University Museum until August 26, 2012.

The exhibit “On the Home Front: Civil War Fashions and Domestic Life” focuses on clothing from the Civil War.

The quilt is said to be made of the scraps from Mary Todd Lincoln's many lavish dresses. Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley was a fashionable Washington dressmaker who became close to the First Lady during the Civil War. The quilt, made about 1870, has a central panel with an embroidered eagle and the word Liberty in metallic thread, a word made more significant when one realizes that Elizabeth Keckley was born a slave. The thread has tarnished. The quilt is fragile so it is not often on exhibit.

Mary Todd Lincoln in 1861

Read an interview with the curator Sara Hume and collections manager Joanne Fenn online here:
http://kentwired.com/kent-state-museum-to-exhibit-civil-war-fashions-mary-todd-lincoln-quilt/

Elizabeth Keckley, the frontispiece from her book

Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House

" 'It’s actually a really amazing quilt,' Hume said. 'The idea of it is terribly compelling, but when you look at it, the object itself is also in its own right. Even if it didn’t have that provenance and if that weren’t the story of the quilt, it would still be one of the most remarkable quilts we have.'

The Kent State University Museum received the quilt as a gift in 1994, which was also the last year it was on display at the museum as part of a quilt exhibit.

Since then, numerous museums have requested to borrow the quilt. About four years ago, the museum loaned it to the Decatur House Museum in Washington, D.C.

'We’ve had requests for the quilt and we’ve had to deny requests,' said Joanne Fenn, collections manager and museum registrar. 'When an item goes on loan, it is most vulnerable, and because it is so important and in such fragile condition, we have to be very careful who we give it to.' "

Read Susan Wildemuth's article from Quilter's World about the quilt:
http://www.quiltersworld.com/webbonuses/pdfs/elizabeth_keckley_mary.pdf

And see more about the museum here:
http://www.kent.edu/museum/visit/index.cfm
Read Elizabeth Keckley's book
Behind the scenes; or, Thirty years a slave, and four years in the White house by clicking here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=0UsIAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=elizabeth+keckley&hl=en&sa=X&ei=IusvT9PrK6GW2AX2t8WGDw&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=elizabeth%20keckley&f=false

Hearts and Gizzards

Allie Aller asked about this quilt pattern after she saw an antique wool version from about 1900.

I remembered this one in the collection of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum. I'd written a catalog entry about it for their book American Quilts in the Modern Age. Theirs is also a tied, embroidered wool comforter from about 1900. It's from Jonathan Holstein's collection and when he published a picture in the 1970s he called it Gothic Windows, a rather elegant name for a pattern that was published as Hearts & Gizzards by the Ladies Art Company about 1890.

See the quilt at International Quilt Study Center:
http://cdn.firespring.com/images/288b131f-fe83-405a-89a8-f6a0759ff2ec.jpg

  

Go Crazy by Allison Aller, 2012

Allie finished her version. She used buttons instead of white ties...

and finished the edge with giant rick-rack

The back has smaller rickrack. She said this binding took a little time...

Read more on her blog

http://alliesinstitches.blogspot.com/2012/01/go-crazyfinished.html

 There is a lot of variation in how wide the center shape is (the Gizzards?) The pattern is #1503 in BlockBase and it can be pieced or appliqued.

1503a

• Hearts & Gizzards - Ladies' Art Company #125 about 1890
• Hearts - Needlecraft Supply about 1937
• Pierrot's Pom-Pom - Carrie Hall 1935
• Aunt Jerusha - Nancy Cabot ?

A vintage quilt, probably from the 1940s.

It's related to this appliqued version, an autograph quilt very popular in the mid-20th century.

#26.84 in my Encyclopedia of Applique

The hearts are a nice image for Valentine's Day. I don't know about the gizzards.

#1504 Steeplechase

For more about Gizzards see this post

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2010/09/unknown-patterns.html 

where Julie from Tennessee wrote that this design is known as Chicken Gizzards around there.

And see Ami Simms's Hearts Gizzards and Kidneystones quilt here:

http://www.amisimms.com/heartsgizzards.html

All these gizzards might have been more appropriate for Thanksgiving than for Valentine's Day.

Turkey Red Friendship

Friendship Kit Quilt from Moda

You need to be shopping for Turkey red reproductions right now.

Buy them when you see them because they are hard to find.

You can see several in Moda's Collection for A Cause: Friendship.

 http://www.unitednotions.com/fcc_collections_friendship.pdf
I see by the comments the precuts are available but the yardage hasn't been shipped.

There are many prints in the line but I'm crazy about the Turkey reds. The kit quilt above is a copy of a Philadelphia Friendship quilt from about 1850. They were wild about Turkey red prints in the 1850s.

Turkey red was especially popular for folded applique patterns like this fleur-de-lis dated 1849 and the quilt for the Friendship line at the top of the page.

From the Friendship reproduction collection

Another block from the 1849 fleur-de-lis.

Reproduction paisley

What makes an authentic Turkey red reproduction? A red background (in true 19th century Turkey reds the fabric was dyed red first and then colors were added by various printing methods).

Reproduction

The figures were limited in color due to the complexity of the printing processes. The most common figures are a dark blackish-brown and a yellow.

Antique with two colors for figures

Reproduction

The printers also added a green.

Antique with yellow, brown and green figures

Reproduction

Antique

In the most complex of the Turkey red prints they printed five colors for the figures

Brown

Yellow

Green

Blue

White

These multicolor Turkey red prints were popular with quilters from about 1840 to 1870--- a necessity for the reproduction stash.

The pattern for the applique quilt at the top of the page is online at Moda's free pattern source. See it here:
http://www.unitednotions.com/fp_cfac-friendship.pdf

See some earlier posts about Turkey red

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2010/09/turkey-red.html

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2010/09/more-on-turkey-red.html

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2011/03/red-white-quilts.html

Corinth for 1862 Battle Hymn

Corinth is named for Corinth, Mississippi, site of an 1862 battle.

 The print is #8222 in my latest Civil War reproduction collection, 1862 Battle Hymn.

Doesn't it look like a cotton boll?

Here's the document print.

 I found it in a swatch book in the Moda library. It's got to be later than the Civil War because of that wine-red background, a color you really don't see until the 1880s, but this is a very symbolic fabric collection so I thought we could use it.

It reminded me of these white on dark prints

that were quite popular right before the Civil War.

Top from about 1850 (the center square is a reproduction print)

You could classify them as floral trails. They often have white stems. 

Two Civil War-era floral trail reproductions.

 We tone down the white in the reproductions.

So we have it in Farragut blue (a navy blue)

and Stonewall Gray - a taupe

From the Library of Congress collection

Corinth, "the Crossroads of the Confederacy," was at the junction of two important rail lines, an important location over which the armies fought for years.

Corinth from the Library of Congress

The Tishomingo Hotel shown here near the tracks became a hospital. Click here to read Confederate nurse Kate Cumming's recollection of her first day as a nurse in that building. 

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2011/10/42-h-is-for-hospital.html 

The Union took control of the town in the 1862 battle and Corinth became a refuge for many escaped slaves.

The Corinth Contraband Camp memorializes those newly free people.

This pattern Railroad Crossing or Rambler is a good one for an authentic reproduction quilt. Click here for a free pattern:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2011/05/rambler-from-civil-war-reunion.html

Here's Roseanne Smith's reproduction using my Civil War Reunion line. This collection is more subdued. Adding a white or ivory contrast would be effective and authentic.

Another option: The Cotton Boll block. See a pattern for an 8" square block here:

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2011/02/8-cotton-boll.html