Here's a late-19th-century four-patch block.
The dark print was the inspiration for "Forget Me Not,"
a print in my Ladies's Album reproduction collection
from Moda.
"Forget Me Not" is available in three colorways:
Forever Green, Red Rose and Natural
"Sweet Sentiment" (see the enlarged detail) comes in five colors:
Natural, Forever Green, Tea Time, True Blue and Red Rose.
Many people added a flourish to their autograph in old album quilt blocks...
1855
perhaps a sprig,
1853
1848
1847
a rose,
or the whole branch.
Mid-19th-century culture required
a little drawing skill.
We tend to leave out the flourishes today because we fear our
drawing and handwriting isn't
good enough.
Are our standards too high?
These homemade flourishes have a lot of charm.
The key, as any 19th-century handwriting teacher could tell you, is
Practice
Practice
Practice!
I love how they signed the quilts, a lost art. We did a signature swap and added our own little touches to them. I still need to make something with mine.
ReplyDeleteDebbie
the forget me not in forever green is my favorite of this line, I think. Wish my house was COVERED in it!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for showing the flourishes. Susan McKelvey first introduced me to the idea of incorporating that into a quilt and, now all my quilts have something. If you cannot draw, find those that you like and trace or use stamps that she created.
ReplyDeleteThe 'whole branch' block signed by C.E. Green is from my dated 1842,43 signature quilt, Variable Star, from Phila. PA area.
ReplyDelete