Emma Wolfe's Tessellating Quilt

 

Silk Quilt by Emma Jane Seipt Wolfe (1855-1922)

Like other silk designs pieced over foundations this one

probably dates from about 1875 to 1910. Documented by

 the Massachusetts project & the Quilt Index

A note stitched to it, however, tells us it was a gift for

son Russell Wolfe in 1913. It might have been long

finished by then. 

Son Russell Wolfe (1882-1977)

Russell's nephew, another Russell Wolfe (1924-2015), died in

Bridgewater, Massachusetts, the probable owner when

the quilt was documented.

Pennsylvanian Emma was from a family of German immigrants who came to Colonial America in 1734. The "Schwenkfelders" sought freedom to practice their religion, a type of Protestantism advocated by Caspar Schwenckfeld von Ossig in Silesia, then a German state, now in Poland's borders. Emma's ancestors David and Judith Seipt were among the 1734 group of over 100 refugees.

Caspar Schwenckfeld von Ossig (1490–1561)

remained in Europe

Schwenkfelders settled in Montgomery County northwest of Philadelphia. Emma lived as a
child in Lansdale and in Philadelphia as an adult. The family attended the Worcester Schwenkfelder Church, where many of them are buried in the cemetery.

Emma may have been a pupil at the Moravian School in Bethlehem as she left them a bequest in her will.

https://quiltindex.org//view/?type=fullrec&kid=11-37-3436

Father Anthony H. Seipt (1825-1902) was a storekeeper, which may have given Emma some access to a variety of silks. In 1877 she married Dr. Samuel Wolfe. They spent much of their married life in Philadelphia where he taught medicine at Temple University.

Samuel Wolfe 1851–1937

The 1910 census tells us Emma gave birth to 4 children of whom 3 were living. Baby Mott Leroy Wolfe had died in 1879.

Their home at 1701 Diamond Street

Close to Temple University

Emma died of heart failure in Salt Lake City in 1922 where her death certificate tells us she had lived for seven months after joining son James who was a Utah lawyer and later a judge.

1923 card in the Philadelphia Inquirer

Philadelphia Inquirer January 1923

Emma left a substantial estate. Husband Samuel remarried and died in Florida in 1937.

The quilt is pieced of patches of one diamond shape. A few are plain silks. A ring of black diamonds with embroidered florals frames the center gold star.

Most of the pieces are what might be called string-pieced diamonds.

She started with a diamond-shaped foundation of fabric or paper and laid 5 strips, covering one end with a curved piece of black silk.

I tried drafting it and found out Emma used neither of the common diamonds found in patchwork. It is not one with the 45 degree angle that makes an 8-pointed star.

As there is a 6-pointed star in the center she must have started with a diamond with a 60 degree angle that tessellates but may have tweaked her background shape a bit. She realized something I'd forgotten. Any four-sided shape will tessellate. It doesn't matter what the angles are as long as the same shape is repeated. 

It looks like she connected long strips of diamonds and eased them to meet to form that center star.

Skinny or squat quadrilaterals as long as each is the same.

The trick is getting them to meet in a central star.

Note that she finished out the corners with strips of green.

A little geometry, a lot of silk. It's all you need.

Print this sheet out for a pattern.

More on her family:

Emma's father's obituary

and her husband's

Schwenkfelder culture is well documented in Pennsylvania:

https://www.schwenkfelder.org/pa-german-textiles