QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Friday, January 29, 2021

Droopy Grapes---Baltimore to Tennessee?



Applique quilt in a vase and floral pattern
attributed to Frances Woodbury Bennett Jared (1833-1883),
Putnam County, Tennessee

From Quilts of Tennessee and the Quilt Index

What may appear to be a unique pattern has many close relatives
that feature a few repeating design characteristics.

Tennessee quilt from an online auction a few years ago.
This one looks older by the quilting, the border and
the setting.
But the two have much in common


And here's another with the same drooping berries or grapes.
the cookie cutter florals (4 red, 1 yellow) with 9 leaves filling out the
top of the block. The footed urn is pieced of yellow and red stripes and the
floral stems give a three-dimensional look by being inserted into
the vase as if one were looking down into it.


A friend recently sent a photo of another with some very dense quilting.
Fabrics look late-19th century and probably early-20th. The conventions are followed.

Who sets up those conventions and how are they communicated?

Across decades?

Another early version---perhaps 1850-1880.
Border features a vessel with a vine growing out of it.
The urn has handles here and grape details have been added
with embroidery.

Later versions are simplified but the coloring of the flowers
is so consistent....

Online auction in 2019
Different flowers & vase.


And then there are the early relatives.
Baltimore antecedents
from the late 1840s to the late 1850s

From an album sampler that looks to have been
made in or near Baltimore.
The grapes are rose buds, the flowers are arranged differently
but the footed vase...

And this one in a quilt for Albert W. Page from an Northeast Auctions sale.

For Hannah Foote, Baltimore Album Quilt
Different conventions...red and blue flowers.

Mary Parks Lawrence (1854-1950), Wichita Sedgwick County Historical Museum

I just realized this quilt documented by Nancy Hornback for the Kansas Quilt Project but made in Logan County, Kentucky in 1870 is another version.Another striped vase with the stems viewed from
the top as well as the droopy fruit. 


A pattern of sorts. 8". Print it at 200%
for a 16" block.

Baltimore to Tennessee---1840s to 1910s...???

Quilt from the Jackson family, possibly made in Jacksonville, Illinois



UPDATE: Xenia Cord reminds me we have all seen a similar vase in a nine-block design that was remarkably popular in the mid-19th-century and beyond. See a post here:

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2018/02/nine-blocks-another-nine-block-pattern.html


Tuesday, January 26, 2021

QuiltMania & Moi


#141 January-February 2021

I have an article in the latest issue of QuiltMania
about madder cotton prints.


Carol Veillon has given the French/English magazine a "brand-new look!" and it's full of great color photos and sophisticated patterns.

Spring Dance by Martha Walker

Criss-Cross Fleuri by Michele Beugnon

With an eye to traditional colors and fabrics this issue.

And an article on Penny & Dean at Electric Quilt...

Where we are working on a new edition of BlockBase.

QuiltMania's Facebook page:

As always we had more pictures of madder-style antiques than would fit on the pages.
Here are a few more mad madders.


1859 ad




Get a copy of the magazine here:
https://www.quiltmania-inc.us/boutique/magazines/quiltmania/quiltmania-141/ 


Madder-style repros from my Moda collection
Ladies' Legacy coming soon:



Saturday, January 23, 2021

In Praise of Volunteer Cataloguers: Rebecca Scattergood Savery

 

Quilt by Rebecca Scattergood Savery (1770-1855), Philadelphia

Collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Stitching one of these Sunburst quilts might be considered a
lifetime achievement but Rebecca made at least 3.

Collection of the International Quilt Museum
Plus three signature quilts
(And how many others not in the records?)

But this is not a post to sing Rebecca's praises. We need to
thank Nancy Ettensperger who has done a remarkable job
of documenting Rebecca, her quilts and her life.

Collection of the International Quilt Museum


Nancy, a genealogist, published a paper on Rebecca and her family
last April. See it here:



Six quilts from the 1840-50s and a well-documented Philadelphia Quaker life!



Nancy's webpage Ancestors & Others is described as: 
Investigating the Lives of Ancestors, Collateral/Allied Families and Complete Strangers.


She says she's thrilled to find someone reads her blog posts. I love the idea of posting a lot of information in blogs (as you might guess.) Sooner or later somebody will find it and be quite happy to have all that info.

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Happy Day!

 

A Visual Celebration of a Long-Awaited Day!

Freeman's Auction

David Wheatcroft Antiques




Binney Collection New England Quilt Museum

Elliot & Grace Snyder Antiques

Fenimore Museum

Freeman's Auction

Laura Fisher Quilts

Massachusetts Quilt Project & the Quilt Index

James Julia Auction

Julie Silber Quilts

Massachusetts Quilt Project & the Quilt Index

Woodard & Greenstein

MESDA Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts

Credit Suisse Collection

D.A.R. Museum

Ohio Historical Society

Skinner's Auction