Richmond Reds: Emporia Original Print

Why Emporia??? Like the other prints in this line

Emporia has a nice ring to the name. Emporia, Kansas,

was about ten years old during the Civil War,

founded by anti-slavery Northerners. We picked

towns North and South for Richmond Reds.

The document print for Emporia in my new 

Richmond Reds reproduction collection of Moda

The original star print was a hexagon in a very worn-out 

comforter that was quite scrappy. I bought the ragged quilt because

it had a hexagon of this Grant Campaign fabric

from 1870.

Although the Grant print was not nearly

in this good a shape.

The original tied comforter, which I took apart

for the fabrics, looked something like this.

I guessed most of the fabric was from about 1870 to 1890

when those scrappy charm quilts were very popular.

I added ten years either side to be safe on the date

 so dated this print as 1860-1900.

The reproduction is available in three colorways

You can see we toned down the bright white

of the original at the top left above, so the new print wouldn't be quite so

spotty. We also added a little more space between

the stars so it would read more as texture or blender from

a distance.

Georgann Eglinski's been using the red colorway to make her

Austen Family Album blocks.