QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Wednesday, March 19, 2025

Pineapples & Myth Busting

 

Pineapple applique quilt in standard red and green colors, about
1850.

Number 9.74 in my Encyclopedia of Applique was quite popular in album samplers
and as a repeat block through the end of the 19th century.




With many variations as in this photograph from the Georgia project book Georgia Quilts. Center embroidery: "M.A.J. Connell A Present From Her Mother"

Quilt attributed to Italian-born Rachel Boggiano about 1880 from the New York project
https://quiltindex.org//view/?type=fullrec&kid=49-142-5734

In her 1929 book Ruth Finley showed two pineapple quilts giving us information about the symbolism:
"One of the most favored of all post-Colonial designs....a symbol of domestic hospitality." 


Late 19th century, attributed to the Dyer family of Arkansas

Her description has become standard text about pineapple quilts. As I often say, I get tired of arguing with Ruth Finley who is behind most of the American quilt myths that need to be busted.

Historian Michael Olmert wrote in “The Hospitable Pineapple” in the Winter 1997-1998 issue of the Colonial Williamsburg Journal: “And here is what we do not know about pineapples: that they had anything at all to do with hospitality in the 17th and 18th centuries." (He needed an editor, but he was an authority.)


Colonial Williamsburg in its prominent spot as a leader in the Colonial Revival of the early 20th century has long used a pineapple as an important welcome symbol, emphasizing the image in the gift shop and seasonal decorations. The state of Virginia and in truth the whole Old South has co-opted the image as a symbol of "Southern Hospitality."



 Marketing and history---two different departments.

Smithsonian Collection. Attributed to an unknown New Yorker, captioned: 
"The pineapple motif, often associated with hospitality."

Recent writers have been considering myths of Southern Hospitality and the Pineapple's symbolism. Among them:

Julia Blakely at the Smithsonian, The Prickly Meanings of the Pineapple
https://blog.library.si.edu/blog/2021/01/28/the-prickly-meanings-of-the-pineapple/

Blakely showed this 1657 plate from A True & Exact 
History of the Island of Barbadoes, by Richard Ligon.

Their findings summarized: The pineapple, a South American fruit, was an expensive, imported luxury worth thousands, valued to show off one's wealth while entertaining. 

Royal Collections Trust/Great Britain
King Charles II receiving a pineapple from the royal 
gardener in the 1670s.

Rich people were known to rent pineapples for an event. They were a status symbol, an indicator of wealth and class.
Sort of like this Chanel handbag worth thousands today.
I am sure people rent Chanel bags for the same reasons.

I try not to be too hard on Ruth Finley lately. She documented her times. 

Ruth Ebright Finley (1884-1955)

Who is to argue with the Rockefellers enthusiastically restoring the colonial Virginia capitol Williamsburg in the 1920s or the Southerners creating a white-washed image of their flawed pre-Civil-War culture.


 Did pineapples have any deep meaning to a 19th-century quiltmaker looking for designs?

Indianapolis Museum of Art Collection
https://collections.discovernewfields.org/art/artwork/49557
Posted by at 3 comments:

Thursday, March 13, 2025

Unusual Pattern in a Silk Quilt

 

Found this quilt dated 1897 a couple of
weeks ago in an online auction. A great
example of the silk fashions of the late 19th century.


It looks like A.P.B. saw a lot of possibilities in the 60 degree triangle. She cut
some diamonds out of a crazy quilt and pieced some out of fans. It would seem like one of a kind.
There's nothing similar in my Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. 

This is all I have found published in pieced 60 degree diamonds.

Not many experimented with diamonds in this way.

Common shading for the 60-degree diamond design.


When I posted APB's quilt Laura Syler had another example to show. A Sunday School friend found it after her husband's death and showed Laura the photo. It looks to be polyester and/or knits, dating it to the mid-20th century or later.

Not nearly as well planned or well-stitched it does indeed
look to be the the same odd pattern.
Three 60-degree diamonds for each hexagonal block.

One of them pieced in a fan design.

Print this for a hexagon about 5-1/2" across.

We aren't going to make it in silk---it's the age of cotton.
How about a version in my next William Morris reproduction
collection Morris Manor?
We are taking preorders now for March delivery.










The fan diamond alone as a repeat tessellation.

Do look at a related design, another fan redrawn to fit a diamond, in this post on Emma Wolfe's quilt. Emma did not use a 60 degree diamond. To my confusion.
https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2025/03/emma-wolfes-tessellating-quilt.html


Posted by at 1 comment:

Friday, March 7, 2025

Time Travel 1938

 

 

Time Travel---Back to 1938

Not the best year ever
but a good one for the textile collection
at the National Museum at the Smithsonian

The museum in the early 20th century

According to their 1938 annual report:

"The collections of early American homecraft textiles and needlework were considerably enhanced by gifts and loans, totaling 8 coverlets, 6 quilts, a linen tablecloth, 38 specimens of fine needlework, and 8 specimens of hair work. 

Betsy Totten's quilt from Marvel Matthes

Among these were: A cotton patchwork and applique quilt, “The Star of Bethlehem,” made in 1810, presented by Mrs. Marvel Mildred Matthes, West Brighton, N. Y.; 

Quilt presented to Ellen Calder dated 1851 (?)

"An 'album' or 'autograph' quilt, made in 1849, a gift of Mrs. Laura 
Calder Stonebraker, Hyattsville, Md." 


Two applique quilts attributed to Lizzie Lisle
"FLANNERY, Mrs. J. P., Baltimore, Md.: 2 bordered appliqued quilts made between 1866 and 1870 by the lender’s aunt, Lizzie Lisle (Mrs. Eden Randall), of Cadiz, Ohio (144535, loan)"
See a recent post:


Strip quilt attributed to Lovisa Seeley Gates

"Lewis, ELEANOR CC. Yellow Springs, Ohio: (Through Mrs. Adelia D. Bauer) 1 pieced cotton quilt in a stripe pattern made about 1840 in New York State by the donor's grandmother, Mrs. Lovisa (Seeley) Gates (1796-1861) (145004)."

The report mentions six quilts but I could find only five. Th quilt below may have been deaccessioned or just re-labeled.

"LANE, Mrs. C. A., Bozman, Md.: Early nineteenth century quilt, pieced in 8-pointed star pattern and joined with squares of hand-blocked chintz, made by an ancestor of the Lane family (147894)."

These annual reports are good sources for a little more about the donors, which can lead us to more information about the makers.

The Totten quilt, a real treasure

.

Posted by at 3 comments:

Saturday, March 1, 2025

Emma Wolfe's Tessellating Quilt

 

Silk Quilt by Emma Jane Seipt Wolfe (1855-1922)
Like other silk designs pieced over foundations this one
probably dates from about 1875 to 1910. Documented by
 the Massachusetts project & the Quilt Index

A note stitched to it, however, tells us it was a gift for
son Russell Wolfe in 1913. It might have been long
finished by then. 

Son Russell Wolfe (1882-1977)
Russell's nephew, another Russell Wolfe (1924-2015), died in
Bridgewater, Massachusetts, the probable owner when
the quilt was documented.

Pennsylvanian Emma was from a family of German immigrants who came to Colonial America in 1734. The "Schwenkfelders" sought freedom to practice their religion, a type of Protestantism advocated by Caspar Schwenckfeld von Ossig in Silesia, then a German state, now in Poland's borders. Emma's ancestors David and Judith Seipt were among the 1734 group of over 100 refugees.

Caspar Schwenckfeld von Ossig (1490–1561)
remained in Europe


Schwenkfelders settled in Montgomery County northwest of Philadelphia. Emma lived as a
child in Lansdale and in Philadelphia as an adult. The family attended the Worcester Schwenkfelder Church, where many of them are buried in the cemetery.


Emma may have been a pupil at the Moravian School in Bethlehem as she left them a bequest in her will.

https://quiltindex.org//view/?type=fullrec&kid=11-37-3436

Father Anthony H. Seipt (1825-1902) was a storekeeper, which may have given Emma some access to a variety of silks. In 1877 she married Dr. Samuel Wolfe. They spent much of their married life in Philadelphia where he taught medicine at Temple University.

Samuel Wolfe 1851–1937

The 1910 census tells us Emma gave birth to 4 children of whom 3 were living. Baby Mott Leroy Wolfe had died in 1879.


Their home at 1701 Diamond Street
Close to Temple University

Emma died of heart failure in Salt Lake City in 1922 where her death certificate tells us she had lived for seven months after joining son James who was a Utah lawyer and later a judge.

1923 card in the Philadelphia Inquirer

Philadelphia Inquirer January 1923

Emma left a substantial estate. Husband Samuel remarried and died in Florida in 1937.

The quilt is pieced of patches of one diamond shape. A few are plain silks. A ring of black diamonds with embroidered florals frames the center gold star.


Most of the pieces are what might be called string-pieced diamonds.
She started with a diamond-shaped foundation of fabric or paper and laid 5 strips, covering one end with a curved piece of black silk.
I tried drafting it and found out Emma used neither of the common diamonds found in patchwork. It is not one with the 45 degree angle that makes an 8-pointed star.
As there is a 6-pointed star in the center she must have started with a diamond with a 60 degree angle that tessellates but may have tweaked her background shape a bit. She realized something I'd forgotten. Any four-sided shape will tessellate. It doesn't matter what the angles are as long as the same shape is repeated. 


It looks like she connected long strips of diamonds and eased them to meet to form that center star.

Skinny or squat quadrilaterals as long as each is the same.
The trick is getting them to meet in a central star.

Note that she finished out the corners with strips of green.

A little geometry, a lot of silk. It's all you need.
Print this sheet out for a pattern.

More on her family:

Emma's father's obituary
and her husband's


Schwenkfelder culture is well documented in Pennsylvania:
https://www.schwenkfelder.org/pa-german-textiles


Posted by at 2 comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)