Chintz of Shells/Swags

 

Irish Chain quilt from the Rocky Mountain Quilt Shop.

Perhaps 1840s.

An interesting quilt in a transitional style.

Taste in quilts was changing in the years1835-1845. 

Furniture-scale prints like the border here were becoming

passé. Smaller-scale prints in greens and reds were

newly fashionable.

An older look:

Coolidge Family, Massachusetts project & the Quilt Index

Skinner Auction

Online Auction

Quilters combined the older looks with the new: Neat pieced blocks

in primary colors with busy floral borders.

Turkey red mignonettes (cute little prints) with chintz

Copake Auction from a Connecticut estate

It's hard to watch taste (yours & everyone else's taste) change while you have a huge stash of out-of-fashion prints.

People must have had piles of furniture-scale prints, all probably English imports.

A transitional style it seems was a solution to the problem. I'd date these to 1830-1850.

Collection of Ileana Villazon

Do notice these quilts have one very popular shell chintz in the borders.(I picked the quilts for the chintz to show you how available that print was.)

I've found nine different colorways of the floral in a shell set. White plus colored grounds that

could be added to the white. There should be a tenth---a chocolate brown

not so red as the Plum.

The repeat fits in a shell with swags: A bouquet, a floral swag 

and a decorative swag with a bow made

of shall we say peanut-like shapes.

A repeat one could cut out and applique for a border

as in this quilt from the Montgomery County [Maryland] Historical Society.

Attributed to Sarah, Ann & Mercy Holland

Photo from the Baltimore Album Quilts Facebook page.

When you look closely at the peanuts you see there are two versions.

Maybe the same print with the blotch green added ---

with a few new details.

Maybe ten years ago Blue Hill did a reproduction

in cooperation with the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum.

In several color ways

I still have many yards. Makes a great border.

Marge Pearson's border for our Hospital Sketches

BOM a few years ago.

And Julee Prose's