Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Applique in Strips

Strip applique quilt from the Kentucky Project
and the Quilt Index.



McCord Down Under by Barbara Brackman
About 45" wide.

I've been working on my strip applique quilt inspired by Susan McCord's Vine and it's almost finished in time for the Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival opening June 15th.
http://kcrqf.com/

Detail of Susan McCord's Vine Quilt
Henry Ford Museum
Her leaves are way smaller than mine.

Applique in strips is pretty rare in 19th-century quilts. I don't have a big file of antique quilts but here are many of them:

Strip applique 1840-1865. French Antiques, online auction.

When there are four appliqued strips you wonder if someone
had some left over borders.




Crib quilt by Alice Jenison, Lansing, Michigan.
Michigan Project & the Quilt Index


Three strips work too.

Shelburne Museum's Sunflower by Carrie M. Carpenter Smith.
Carrie seems to have actually done this as square blocks.



Nice balance of stripes and vines from the collection of Quilts, Inc.


Not quite so graceful but a wonderful take on the subject.
From an online auction.


Another internet picture. Source?

Mid-19th century?

Grapes on the right
What's that on the left? Pokeberries?
There seems to be a grape theme.

Treasure from the Minnesota Historical Society, which they call
Leaf & Berry, made in New Hampshire


Again, grapes and pokeberries on the vine

Outrageous botany. Online auction.



The subcategory in this filing system is applique strips on the diagonal---
of which I have only two.

Lavinia Butts Lewis from the Georgia Project & the Georgia Quilts book

Collection of the Shelburne Museum.
It's called Bias Pomegranate

Froncie Quinn has patterns for the two Shelburne quilts here
at Hoopla Patterns.

Friday, May 26, 2017

Mary Elizabeth Jones Orgain's 1818 Sunflower Quilt


Quilt signed and dated 1818 Sterling and Mary Orgain
Texas quilt project & the Quilt Index.
Made by Mary Elizabeth Jones Orgain (1801-1878)

This quilt in the collection of the Briscoe Center was
recently shown at the Bell County Museum in Texas.



I've been analyzing my collection of quilts with dates inscribed on them and this one stands out among the quilts in the teens. Could it really be as old as 1818?

It's so...block-like
so....like she bought the fabric just for a quilt
the chintz looks so....imported.
It's so repetitive.
All design characteristics that are rather uncommon 200 years ago.


See my Pinterest page of quilts date-inscribed 1811-1820 by clicking here:

I gave a paper at Colonial Williamsburg this spring on the topic of style and pattern in dated quilts before 1840 so I've puzzled about this one. Is Mary Orgaine a trend setter in quilt style?
I'm going to believe the date is accurate and that she was in the forefront of quilt design in the teens. But she wasn't alone in stitching repetitive circular blocks

Quilt signed "1811 REB" from the Ohio Historical Society's collection.
This red and white Mariner's Compass is dated 1811 in the center in stuffed work. (Not something you'd add later)


Mary Jones (there are many now and then)  married a man named Sterling Orgaine or Orgain (of whom there may be only two in recorded history --- Sterling and Sterling Jr.) It's easy to find records of them. [The men's first names were William but were known as Sterling.]

Mary & Sterling Sr. (1787-1878) were married March 31, 1818. Mary Elizabeth Jones (1801-1878) was born in Tennessee to Edmund Jones of Murfeesboro. Sterling was born in Brunswick County, Virginia. In 1818 he was living in West Tennessee, in what would become Paris, a merchant and blacksmith in partnership with Alfred Moore who married Mary Elizabeth's sister. (Mary may have been called by her middle name too.)

The quilt likely was made in Tennessee for their wedding. The Orgains were prosperous, listed as owners of 30 slaves in the 1830 census. Mary Elizabeth gave birth to 11 children. It seems that both her father Edmund and her husband were Methodist preachers.

It's quite plausible that the 1818 date is accurate. And we also can consider this a possible slave-made quilt because the Orgains were slaveholders.

In 1854 her son John Henry Orgain sent one of his slaves to Texas to oversee some land he'd purchased. Adam Orgain (1837-?) is considered the first settler in Hutto in Williamson County, Texas. The rest of the family including Sterling and Mary Elizabeth followed at some point during the 1850s. 32 year-old John and 25-year-old Sterling Jr. enlisted in the Williamson County Grays, 7th Regiment, Company C, John was wounded but both survived the war.

 Hutto, Texas in the 1870s.  Collection of the Hutto Heritage Foundation

Hutto, near Round Rock in Williamson County, remained the Orgains's home. Mary Elizabeth and Sterling are both buried in the Shiloh McCutcheon Cemetery. 



Both died in January, 1878. 

Son Ben's house

Their children were prosperous too and several of their homes still stand in Hutto and the area.
Son John's house

Grandson Elbert's house.

And read more about the Orgains here:

Monday, May 22, 2017

Queen Victoria Coronation Prints

Queen Victoria Coronation Commemorative Print
1838
Cut out and appliqued to a quilt block.
Collection International Quilt Study Center & Museum # 1997.007.0479

A second  chintz quilt with a similar figure from Ohio in the IQSCM collection.
This is #2001.015.001
http://www.quiltstudy.org/exhibitions/online_exhibitions/chintz/applique_quilts3.html

A third American quilt with a different coronation print.
This one is the 1843 Sarah Morrell album in the collection
of the American Museum of Folk Art.

A fourth:
Displayed last month at the Munson, Williams, Proctor Art Institute
in Utica, New York.


The cotton was probably printed in 1838 for the June event.
The print features a monochrome scene in a field of full-color chintz in the quilt above.
This print seems to be more common than the other, done in several colorways.


The seated Queen is surrounded by courtiers as she is crowned.


Center of a British quilt with a coronation print in the center. 
Collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum.
See the whole quilt here:

The Smithsonian's Cooper Hewitt Museum has a large piece with a light ground
and limited color - half chintz.

Same scene but a variation with a 
 a fancy background
of diamond shaped netting.

That detail comes from this whole-cloth quilt of the yardage.

The Lion in the English coat of arms overlooks the scene.

I've found two Coronation commemorative handkerchiefs,
 the blue one above in the collection
of the Victoria and Albert.

The red one from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.


I bet there were more cotton prints produced.
And more quilts made featuring them.

See a photo of Victoria's coronation robe:
http://fripperiesandfobs.tumblr.com/post/8727754236/supertunica-worn-by-queen-victoria-at-her

More about the costumes in the television drama on PBS last winter.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/people/the-real-stories-behind-jenna-colemans-resplendant-victoria-cost/

Thursday, May 18, 2017

Quilt Market St Louis: Our Virtual Booth

Our Virtual Booth
Sunflower Pattern Co-operative

Spring Quilt Market is in St. Louis this week: May 19-21, 2017.

We are bringing everybody.
Me, Karla, Pam, Deb, Jean, Shauna
and Dottie the Dachshund.

The true facts are we aren't actually going to market. But it's always
fun to design the virtual booth.

Another True Fact: We have no new patterns right now for the Sunflower Pattern Co-operative. We are focusing on digitizing the classics from years past for our Etsy Shop.

You can buy a PDF of Crown of Thorns

 (And we only have one actually digitized) but we have a lot of books and patterns in paper fashion still in stock.


Check out the actual virtual store here:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/SunflowerPatternCoop?ref=hdr_shop_menu

(PS: I'm going on vacation for about 2 weeks so any orders will be delayed till June.)