Western Sun

Here's one of the great American quilts. It's from Julie Silber's & Linda Reuther's collection

at Mary Strickler's Quilt Shop 

long ago---a mid-19th-century crib quilt.

Karen at the Log  Cabin Quilter blog did a great job of interpreting it.

http://karen-logcabinquilter.blogspot.com/2008/03/quilt-show-part-one.html

Using our pattern from the Sunflower Pattern Co-operative

book Butternut & Blue: Threads of the Civil War.

It's somehow just a perfect combination of block and sashing.

The block is a simple wheel variation, 8 points around a large circle. You'd think there would be many quilts in this basic wheel design, however, I haven't seen but a few.

It's a variation of BlockBase #3417 which was published

in the early 20th century by Hearth & Home magazine as Charity Wheel,

perhaps a reference to using wheel designs for fundraising quilts.

Here's Karla's model for Butternut & Blue.

We called it Western Sun.

She used shades of butternut brown.

Sue Troyen and her beautiful version.

Or is it Marcie's at Patchalot, which is where I found this version.

http://patchalotmore.blogspot.com/2009/10/flying-into-western-sun.html

Western Sun from Alaska Quilt Zone

http://www.joeomar.com/photography_quilts.html

She made a rectangle of it.

We still have copies of the book with the Western Sun pattern in it.

See it in our Sunflower Pattern Co-operative Etsy shop:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/523315441/butternut-blue-threads-of-the-civil-war?ref=shop_home_active_11

Here it is colored Union blue.

Cheater Cloth - Geometrical Chintz

Printed patchwork, about 1880.

Probably from the Cacheco Mills.

Wholecloth quilt. Note the diagonal seam.

This was a very successful print at a time

when "patchwork prints" were the fashion.

A business paragraph reprinted in many newspapers

in 1878

"Dry Goods...business continues quiet....Prints are moving slowly, except specialties, such as Turkey reds and patchwork prints, which are in fair request."

The hexagonal print, which textile historian Deborah Kraak found numbered #8896 in

some Cacheco records, was used rather creatively by quiltmakers.

Here it's the focus in a charm quilt from an

online auction.

It's fussy-cut here too in a sampler from the Pat Nickols collection at the Mingei Museum

(Is it a quilt as you go/potholder style construction?)

Most of you know the term potholder style, and might describe the fabric as cheater cloth or faux patchwork. How historically correct those terms are is disputable, but they do communicate.

Other quiltmakers thought the Cacheco patchwork print quite appropriate for a setting fabric.

Going along with the whole Victorian idea of more is better.

Another colorway

Less contrast, but still a bit much.

Here it is as a border.

The best idea may have been as a whole cloth quilt

or a backing.

From the Athol (Massachusetts) 

 Historical Society collection.

And if you didn't have enough---

Faux Patchwork is faux patchwork, I guess. Combine

two of them.

When I wrote Clues in the Calico in 1979 I noted several names for the style. Printed Patchwork seems to be the period name from the late 19th century.

I was wrong 28 years ago about the dates on the style but that's another post another time. They seem to go back to the 18th century in Europe and earlier in the East.

Geometrical Chintz and Faux Patchwork were terms Ruth Finley used in her 1929 book. I haven't found any period references to the name Geometrical Chintz. Finley's Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women Who Made Them is the first publication in which I've been able to find of the term Faux Patchwork.

For Cheater Cloth I was surprised to find a 1910 citation in the industry periodical America's Textile Reporter.

Cheater cloth, 24-27 inches wide 9 cents a yard under ginghams.

Gingham at the time was not narrowed to a woven check. It meant a plain woven, cotton fabric.

That word might actually be Chester cloth but I haven't found any other references to Chester cloth. Or any other period references to cheater cloth for that matter.

See Deborah E. Kraak's "Patchwork Prints in America" in  Uncoverings 2011. The abstract describing the paper is here:

https://americanquiltstudygroup.org/uncoverings-2011-patchwork-prints-in-america/

And if you must have some of the hexagon cheater cloth you probably can.

Riley Blake and Penny Rose did a reproduction last year.

Two (3) Golden Ages of Applique

Mathematical Star quilt, Maryland's eastern shore, 1850s

Collector and quilt historian Deborah Cooney has curated

an exhibit at the Virginia Quilt Museum in Harrisonburg.

Two Golden Ages of Applique: 1840-1870 & 1920-1940

Through May 20th, 2017

Orchid Wreath quilt with the embroidered name Mabel,

from a Rose Kretsinger pattern in the Second Golden Age

This is an opportunity to see some impressive applique quilts.

Many of the quilts in the show are from Debby's collection.

  

Cut out chintz cradle quilt with

 reverse applique vine, 1830s.

And most are from the first "Golden Age".

She's also borrowed from her friends.

 The 1860s sampler above is from Polly Mello's collection.

 "Trophy of Arms" panel in the center of a Virginia quilt

about 1835 -1850. Collection: Ratcliffe & Bennet

From Pat & Arlan Christ's collection on the left.

The Baltimore Applique Society has sponsored a printed color catalog.

Buy it by sending a check for $16.65 to the Museum Shop

Virginia Quilt Museum
301 South Main St.
Harrisonburg, VA 22801

Bobbi Finley, Remembering Anna Garnhart, 2006,

32" x 40.5"

Made for an AQSG Quilt Study.

Debby believes we are now basking in the glow of the Third Golden Age of Applique. To illustrate her point we have Bobbi Finley's interpretation of the early-19th-century quilts by Anna Catherine Markey Garnhart.

See more at the Virginia Quilt Museum's website:

http://www.vaquiltmuseum.org

DeLaines & Prussian Blue

Mouse in the mousseline delaine

Prussian blue cottons in a top from my collection.

At the recent conference on Printed Fashions at Colonial Williamsburg two speakers focused on a related topics: Prussian Blue and Mousseline De Laine

These pictures are not theirs, but some

I have collected as pictures or quilts.

Anita Loscalzo showed us many examples of Prussian blue in cottons and explained the chemistry of this dye. She mentioned that the greens seen with the blues were colored from Persian berry. I assume the yellow from Persian berry or buckthorn shifted the blues to this characteristic teal green.

Another of my tops.

Prussian blue cottons were quite popular with American quiltmakers in the 1840s. Anita said that as early as 1827 the Cacheco Printworks bought 4 machines for "bluework." I was surprised to hear that so much Prussian blue printing was done in the United States.

Quilt dated 1846

Mousseline de Laine, produced by English mill Hargreaves in 1849.

Dr.  Margaret Ordonez also surprised me with American swatches of delaine (wool & cotton mixed fabric) printed in the Prussian blue steam style. 

Although named a bleachery the firm 

printed cotton and cotton/wool fabrics.

She showed the 1843 sample book from the Green's Dale Bleachery in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, which contained many of the dress fabrics they marketed as French delaines.

Two colorways of the same delaine print

De Laine (French for "of wool") is a combination of cotton yarn and a worsted wool. The wool takes the dye better than the cotton. Notice the white specks where the cotton has rejected the brown color. The formal French name was wool muslin Mousseline de Laine but that was usually shortened to delaine.

Swatch from a delaine tile quilt once in Linda Reuther's collection.

Margaret had many observations about what she saw in the sample books. One was that the designs were often printed on the reverse of the fabric, the side that had more wool exposed. 

Another was that red, oranges and yellows were printed in smaller areas---more as accents. The fabrics tended to blue, brown, green and purple.

Sample book or swatch book from 1846 - 1848

Delaine from the British Journal of Design, 1849

Swatch with formula from a Pacific Printworks 

dye book in the Cooper Hewitt Museum

The fabrics were heavier after 1860.

The fact that they were domestically printed certainly explains

their abundance in American quilts.

I have a Pinterest page of Prussian blue---vintage & repro cottons. Check it out here:

https://www.pinterest.com/materialculture/prussian-blue-past-perfect/

See Anita's AQSG paper about Prussian blue in Uncoverings 2010.

Loscalzo, Anita B. "Prussian Blue: Its Development as a Colorant and Use in Textiles,"  in Horton, Laurel. 2010. Uncoverings 2010: Volume 31 of the Research Papers of the American Quilt Study Group.