"Labor of Love" or a "Consumer Trend?
Crazy Quilts, especially the really elaborate and skillfully
embroidered pieces, have long been considered
the pinnacle of late-19th-century handwork.
How those women could sew!
Note the brownish outline around the bird, stitches attaching the "slip" to the silk.
Hummingbirds (?) with speckled breasts: 2 Different Quilts
A good many of those embroidered vignettes were purchased and what's more---they were machine-embroidered. Kursheedt's in New York was one of the big commercial sources for the pictorials. They held the patents on the embroidery machines.
"If ladies have no time to embroider...they will find the Kursheedt's embroidered color silk appliques most convenient."
"Mother" probably died in 1880; her memorial stitched later with
some trendy purchases among the patchwork.
Over at our 6KnowItAlls:ShowUsYour Quilts Facebook page we were looking at inscriptions last month and discovered something as a group. The elaborate monograms and dates on some crazy quilts also could be purchased in various forms. One could buy a stencil, a template or a machine-embroidered letter finished on a piece of silk taffeta or velvet.
A felt or flannel (?) letter to embroider around.
A Template
Textile dealer Nancy Hahn had just purchased some:
"Crowley's Fibre Letter Foundations,"Crowley's Department Stores in Chicago and Detroit, 1920-1950. I made a few completed samples to display, as I'm selling the individual monograms in my antique shop. I basted the forms onto my background fabric and then hand stitched a satin stitch using pearl cotton. After experimenting with the 1st one, they became easier to do and each looked better than the last."
These are forms or templates that one could embroider over while attaching them to a background.
But---like the hummingbird above: Could you buy finished initials either as slips to attach to a background or as finished machine embroidery on a fabric background to cut to fit in your crazy quilt?
I searched in newspapers, magazines and online auctions for words like: "monogram---initial---crazy quilt" and found two copies of this catalog The Initial House from G. Reis and Bro. who would sell you embroidered monogram initials, which is probably what we have been seeing on crazy quilts for years, believing the quiltmaker stitched them.
"Nora Sister (18)86"
Once you know the words to search for you find a lot of evidence for the existence of machine-sewn letters and numerals. In 1910 Reis gave us names for the product: "Padding Letters, Skeleton Letters, Embroidery Forms, Foundation Letters and Embroidery Foundations."
Hand embroidered? Or ordered from a factory that machine embroidered to order?
Terms like Skeleton Letters and Embroidery Forms make one wonder if they are also talking about templates, machine-cut letters that you attached to your background and then satin-stitched over the skeleton.
Carol Leather found some British letter forms and tried it. Quite a nice look.
Luann Pfost summarized it for us and showed us some magazine pages:
"Starting in the late 1870s perforated patterns and hot iron transfers of such alphabets were easily purchased from any needlework store. At the time manufacturers used the same machine to make both. This allowed several options for needle-workers
#1 take your material to a printer or artist to be stamped.
#2 buy material that already has been stamped , embroider it then applique.
#3 buy pre made appliqué and sew it on.
#4 buy a hot iron transfer to stamp your fabric with.
#5 buy a stencil (perforated patterns are a type of stencil) and stamp your own.
#1 take your material to a printer or artist to be stamped.
#2 buy material that already has been stamped , embroider it then applique.
#3 buy pre made appliqué and sew it on.
#4 buy a hot iron transfer to stamp your fabric with.
#5 buy a stencil (perforated patterns are a type of stencil) and stamp your own.
#6 use a copy method to draw or trace onto your material."
Peggy Norris: "It occurs to me that some of the thrifty women would have taken a cue from the commercial product and cut out their own."
Why don't we use "Skeleton letters" to make slick embroidered labels?
They may not sell them any more, but we could make our own. Crafts shops sell plastic stencils for fancy lettering. You could buy a set, trace your initials and/or date onto flannel or pellon, cut them out and satin stitch over them.
No templates here!
Now, some readers are not too happy with the "No Santa Claus" idea in crazy quilt embroidery. Quilts are just so emotionally linked---Sentimentalists cannot bear to think of commerce dictating style. But it does.
Alden O'Brien tells us she's always been skeptical about the presence of impressive hand embroidery on crazy quilts, knowing that few women at the time (1880-1925) were well-versed in the techniques.
Most of us would have little trouble distinguishing a possible machine-embroidered slip from a hand-guided, hand-embroidered inscription.
Debby Cooney Post
Well, not always.....
Applique over Skeleton Letters?
See a post: more
https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2023/04/crazy-embroidery-4-kursheedts-embroidery.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawL0doZleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFCWkZzYVZDaTZQZVRBQzRQAR5DDedP6WtDx8vk97XfeTHpPn7Dr_LB2iy06urvoaqgTPKM-LMHxnXRf9jB5g_aem_PUFSDFzhcKfMNuR6O4S88Q
https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2023/04/crazy-embroidery-4-kursheedts-embroidery.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawL0doZleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFCWkZzYVZDaTZQZVRBQzRQAR5DDedP6WtDx8vk97XfeTHpPn7Dr_LB2iy06urvoaqgTPKM-LMHxnXRf9jB5g_aem_PUFSDFzhcKfMNuR6O4S88Q
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