QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Log-A-Rhythm Jelly Roll Quilt

Great quilt top from an online auction, maybe
1930-1960

It's a version of what they call Half-A-Log in Gees Bend,
Alabama.

A Half a Log about 1900

But this one has an extra square in the intersections
and that square is always red.
There's a four patch in the corner.
Not a published pattern
 
I drew it up in EQ8 using my new repro fabrics
Ladies Legacy from Moda.

The collection has lights and darks and several bright reds.

For a 12" finished block you need to cut 2-1/2 Inch strips.
Perfect for a Jelly Roll.

36 Blocks will make a 72" quilt
Half the blocks have the four patch in the top right;
half in the bottom left. That's the Log-a-Rhythm


I have no idea how many blocks you could get out of one Jelly Roll.
But you probably have a few more 2-1/2" strips in the stash that would work out fine.


Friday, March 26, 2021

Unpublished Regional Patterns in the Encyclopedia

 

Pennsylvania name quilt inscribed by James Mack, 1854.
Pook & Pook Auction.

Here's one of the patterns I added to the new Encyclopedia of Pieced Patterns and BlockBase+

A nine-patch with a square in the center for an inscription.

Similar quilt made for 
"Anna Maria Desch
(Her Quilt)
1853"

The pattern was handed around in a small community in southeastern Pennsylvania. Anna Maria's quilt is in the collection of the Goschenhoppen Historians in Berks County. Not a lot of examples but enough to make it significant.

https://goschenhoppen.pastperfectonline.com/webobject/8246C276-C024-4E3D-A176-418913431006

People call it Flying Crow today but we don't know how old that name is. I thought I'd add it to the index because it is distinctive and such a good clue to a Pennsylvania origin. In the Encyclopedia it is labeled, "Unknown from a Pennsylvania quilt dated 1853." You don't get quite as much information in BlockBase+ (why you need both the book & the program.)


Now #1644

Read Lucinda Cawley's AQSG paper: "Ihr Deppich: Quilts & Fraktur" in the 2004 Uncoverings:
https://quiltindex.org/view/?type=page&kid=35-90-278

I added several other patterns passed around without benefit of commercial publication. 

#3982.5

The Bowmansville Star, again popular in a small Pennsylvania community but not published as a pattern until recently.

The Encyclopedia book tells you it is the Bowmansville Star, popular in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Here's a version in the collection of the Museum at Michigan State University.

Inscription: 1887 Ida Mayer, who lived in Bowmansville. 
From the look of the blue Eli Walker print in the border 
I'd guess it was bordered and quilted about 100 years later.

The Pennsylvanians created many variations of the large star pieced of squares so if you are numbering yours I'd call it #3982.5 variation.

I also numbered regional patterns found other places.

North Carolina quilt from
 Kathy Sullivan's collection, about 1890-1930

Over ten years ago we discussed a rather fascinating Southern pattern on this blog.


Where it was identified as a pattern found in the Indiana project.

It's now in BlockBase+
as #4180 so you can make a block any size you want.


I did a preview of the pattern as templates in BlockBase+. There are four templates because they are not exactly alike. Here's a preview of a pattern (12" as I recall.)
I usually file these digitally rather than printing them out, saving them either as a PDF or do a screen shot of the preview. I condense the templates too by using the move tool (that arrow at top right)


So now I am ready to make one of these. Hah!
Pigs flying.
Which might be a good alternate name.

More information on BlockBase+: 

UPDATE:
I see on the EQ Blog that you can make plastic 3-dimensional templates with BlockBase+ on a 3-D Printer.




Tuesday, March 23, 2021

Virtual Booth Spring 2021

 

Virtual Quilt Market takes place this week starting today.
I've been working on my virtual booth.



My virtual booths were pretty lonesome in 2020
so I thought I'd get nostalgic about shopping crowds
and set up a 20th-century department store like Filene's or
Marshall Field's Bargain Basement.

I've got lots to show. New Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns
New BlockBase+
And new Moda repro collection Ladies' Legacy.

I thought I'd sell precuts and kits for the quilt on the wall there.
But yardage would be good too.
I'd need a clerk to cut.

I made the mistake of hiring Harold Lloyd from
his movie Safety Last. He did say he had experience
in the fabric department.


That was in 1923. Almost a hundred years later he still isn't good at customer relations or cutting yardage.

The whole booth turned into a virtual riot

However, some people got books
and computer programs and I did move
some precuts.

The last we saw of the cutting table clerk he was clinging to a clock over Broadway in Los Angeles.
Reminding you that time is passing and you only have till the end of the month to take advantage of a 25% off sale at Electric Quilt.

March Madness over March 31st.






 







Sunday, March 21, 2021

Quilt Index Entertainment

 

"Sarah Stilwell
1863"
A date-inscribed quilt


The Quilt Index, which contains hundreds of thousands of photos of quilts new and old, has a new interface. I've been learning to use it and thought I'd show you how I've spent some rainy afternoons.

My favorite find today is Sarah Stilwell's dated quilt.

I've been looking at quilts documented in the New York project, fishing around for style ideas
and information for my Ladies' Aid Album: New York Sampler BOM.

Quilt by or for Ina F. Acra

If you go to the search page and look for quilts made in New York you get nearly 4,000 hits. Too many for me to deal with, so I decided I would look at New York quilts county by county---looking for regional differences in style and pattern.

Ina's quilt is from Niagara County.
(If there's a horse on it it's from New York.)

Go to the Quilt Index Search page
https://quiltindex.org/search/quilts/

You'll see a box that says "County Made."

I am doing New York county by county. There are 62 and I started with some of the oddly named
counties like Tioga and St. Lawrence. When I get around to Washington I will have to narrow my search.
69 hits for St. Lawrence County

I found a map of the counties and did some Photoshopping
mainly because I am practicing using the new program and a
new computer, so here's my digital list of the counties I've searched.
White dots.

And a few of the photos I've saved for inspiration




For the regional pattern files.
New York patterns

New York color schemes.
New Paltz, by a woman whose mother was a Hasbrouck,
Dutch Reformed Church.
Several leads to pursue.
Will be looking for Ina Acra and Sarah Stilwell too.

And some just to save for fun.

Thursday, March 18, 2021

Southern Twins

 


I love coming across a pair of twin quilts as it can lead to many questions about how pattern was passed around (and occasionally some answers.)

We're looking at a pair of quilts so similar I had the pictures filed as the same quilt until I looked a little closer. The most obvious difference is that one is sashed with a different color and one is in a lot better shape than the other. They're attributed to the Carolinas.

The North Carolina quilt was documented in their state project, attributed by the family to Annie Daly Creech (1827-1904) who spent most of her life in Goldsboro, Wayne County.

 Photos from the Quilt Index here:

Years ago documenter Erma Kirkpatrick thought it dated to before the Civil War and she noted it was both pieced and appliqued. Although she might have been referring to the blocks being joined as the piecing she also might have been talking about the leaves being pieced into a circle, which sometimes was the technique used in this design. The fruit at the top was also sometimes pieced into a circle.

McKissick Museum  Collection

The McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina owns the second one, attributed to Adella Hays, about 1850.

Adella's name is inked on the front.
She is not so easy to find as Annie Daly Creech.


Perhaps she is this Adelia Hays listed in the 1860 Georgia census
living in Dooly County, Georgia married ? to Methodist Circuit Rider
T.W. Hays and living with the Roberts family on a farm. This
Adelia was born about 1835, old enough to have made a pre-Civil-War quilt.

The chintz-scale floral borders in the two quilts are different. Even though we cannot see much of Annie's we do get a good view of Adella's. Both are cut to feature a stripe of florals. The idea of bordering a conventional applique quilt with a chintz floral is SO Carolina. They did love their chintz and they had a lot of it.

Whenever I see a chintz border I tend to wonder where
she got the fabric. Did she have family in the fabric business?
And often that is the case.

Annie lived in Goldsboro, a railroad junction in the mid-19th century
and probably a market town after the Civil War.

A few years after Annie's time

Her husband Confederate Veteran Devereaux Creech (1830-1919) ran a General Store; as late as 1889 he was listed as owning a "GS." They had two sons and the boys took it over as Creech Brothers for a while but each went his own way, one continuing to run the general store and the other opening a jewelry store in Goldsboro.

Annie's flowery obituary
October 26, 1904

One quilt superimposed over another.
The same pattern.

We might have a clue as to where Annie got her fabric, but nothing about why these two quilts are so similar.

Adella Hays block

And how old are the quilts?  (Even if the chintzes are mid-century)
We'd want to look close before guessing they might be later.
Didn't solve many mysteries but the search was fun.

And one more question: Did Adella buy hers from Annie?