2025 hasn't been my favorite year but I have lots of quilt ideas and new fabrics to keep me planning and occasionally sewing.
A hundred years ago in 1925 fewer ideas were floating. Here's a look at quilts in my date-inscribed files for 1925.
"To Give to G. F. Garrison By his Grand Mother Garrison June 20 1925"
M. Garrison's fabric is typical of the year 1925, pieced of woven stripes & plaids,
a color emphasis on blues and here we see some recycled white sacking fabric.
The quilts reflect the fabric shortages of the World War I years in
the teens when the important German dyes were unavailable.
Apparently by 1925 prints remained harder to find than woven patterns.
Tied friendship quilt in blues
Most quilts seem to have been made for warmth
and not for show. This strip crazy is machine
quilted in straight lines a couple of inches a part.
Blues had been the quiltmakers' favorite since the late 1900s when
dye masters invented a cheaper synthetic indigo that became
part of everybody's wardrobe and scrap bag.
Two dates: 1883 and 1925. The earlier date must have
commemorated when the local Union veteran's group WRC
(Women's Relief Corps) was founded.
Plain red and white remained popular for name quilts, this one from a Baptist
Church in Valley Mills, Texas
Terrible photos of one embroidered Kansas and 1925 in
a corner. One of the few elaborately quilted piece from the year.
It looks pink in the photo but it's more likely Turkey red.
One could combine the two rather reliable and popular shades in what they
called the "National Colors" at the time.
I'd guess the gray here was once a bit bluer. If it wasn't indigo and it was
blue it had a tendency to fade in the early 20th century.
Star fundraiser full of embroidered names
Again, perhaps from Texas
We can see that solid colored cottons were unreliable. The quilt
below was probably once red, white & blue but most of the reds
are now tan and the blues are streaked where it was folded
and exposed to light.
It's another 1925 name quilt from Texas, the only applique in the file, (places say Dallas &
San Antonio but also Chicago)
Individuals and organizations had blocks....A Baptist Church...
The Buisy (sic) Bees and the Ku Klux Klan
This Pennsylvania quilt is classic 1890-1930 style.
Two reds including the claret that had been around for several decades
and the popular gray prints.
Perhaps the date is the year it was quilted rather than
pieced. It's so "old-fashioned,"
but then Pennsylvania quilts tend to be old-fashioned.
A surprise on the back!
A top dated 1925 so we can be pretty sure it
was pieced in 1925---in a style popular since abut 1900.
Change was on the horizon but still a few years away. Quilters were content with simple pieced patterns, dark prints and rather minimal handwork. Little applique in the file.
A pair of quilts dated 1925 with the change that was coming---
lighter plain color fabrics. The blocks are lilac with something that looks to have faded.
And is that Nile green in this name quilt dated 1925?
You don't really see it for five years or so....
Surviving quilts tell us that wool must have been a common and available fabric.
Style echoes earlier times but again simple and not skillfully stitched.
String quilt possibly from Tennessee
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1924 & 1925 "Mother," "AOUW"
From the late Laura Fisher's inventory, covered with names...
and "A.A. OYE"
Rectangle comforters of wools possibly ripped from sample books
continued. This one with a striped flannel back and fancy ties.
Classic sample quilt continuing an early 20th-c. fashion.
Some of these dates show that embroidery skills were important.
This star is exceptional in several ways.
Complex piecing and above average quilting for the day
String/Log Cabin with note dating it to 1925 & 1926 from the Nickols
Collection at the Mingei Museum
Name quilt from Oneida, New York
(before swastikas symbolized fascism)
Name or album quilt that follows style set in the 1840s,
several fabrics here woven patterns, no prints.
Two years down the line innovative cottons in prints and plains gave new ideas to
clever people---The Quilt Revival!
