Unusual Cheater Cloth

 

Over at the 6 Know-It-Alls Facebook group Ileana showed us these blocks that look to be about 1900.

An apple and an angel that look to be cut out of other blocks.

Poor angel's head has faded. The wing on the right is the fabric in question.

Ileana noted this scrap in the apple,

GA & KAN

States? & American flags in a cheater print.

The great thing about the group discussion there is how we figured some things out. Those of us from Kansas & Georgia recognized our state seals.

Barbara Jeffery Danzi quickly found a mysterious item at the National Gallery of Art---a paper rendition of the same thing from 1937. But we decided that was paper and the fabric did not look 1930s.

https://www.nga.gov/artworks/14872-textile-state-emblems

The image looked like a W.P.A. watercolor from the late 1930s.

I had a file of watercolor renditions of quilts from the collection of the National Gallery. This is similar in that it's an artist's accurate rendition of a piece of fabric rather than a "folk art." Angelo Bulone of Cleveland, Ohio was employed by the federal WPA to record America's material culture (colored film was unavailable in general at the time.) 

The faux patchwork or cheater cloth looks like 1880-1900. But Barbara Z found a seal for "Oklahoma which became a state in 1907 but I don't see New Mexico or Arizona which were admitted in 1912." Can we guess that the print was sold between 1907 and  1912?

The American Textile Reporter 1910

Cheater cloth seems like a recent term but see the clip above and the post below: https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2017/04/cheater-cloth-geometrical-chintz.html

Ask to join our Facebook group. We learn a lot from each other:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/6knowitalls

I am inspired to organize my cheater cloth picture files. Perhaps another post.

1925: Quilts A Century Ago

 

2025 hasn't been my favorite year but I have lots of quilt ideas and new fabrics to keep me planning and occasionally sewing. 

A hundred years ago in 1925 fewer ideas were floating. Here's a look at quilts in my date-inscribed files for 1925.

"To Give to G. F. Garrison By his Grand Mother Garrison June 20 1925"

Couldn't find a published name before the 1930s for these rows of off-set triangles shaded in this fashion.

But in 1933 the Chicago Tribune's fictional columnist Nancy Cabot published something similar with her usual exaggerated history.

M. Garrison's fabric is typical of the year 1925, pieced of woven stripes & plaids,

a color emphasis on blues and here we see some recycled white sacking fabric.

The quilts reflect the fabric shortages of the World War I years in

the teens when the important German dyes were unavailable.

Apparently by 1925 prints remained harder to find than woven patterns.

Tied friendship quilt in blues

Most quilts seem to have been made for warmth

 and not for show. This strip crazy is machine

quilted in straight lines a couple of inches a part.

Blues had been the quiltmakers' favorite since the late 1900s when

dye masters invented a cheaper synthetic indigo that became

part of everybody's wardrobe and scrap bag.

Two dates: 1883 and 1925. The earlier date must have

 commemorated when the local Union veteran's group WRC 

(Women's Relief Corps) was founded.

Plain red and white remained popular for name quilts, this one from a Baptist

Church in Valley Mills, Texas

Terrible photos of one embroidered Kansas and 1925 in

a corner. One of the few elaborately quilted piece from the year.

It looks pink in the photo but it's more likely Turkey red.

One could combine the two rather reliable and popular shades in what they 

called the "National Colors" at the time.

I'd guess the gray here was once a bit bluer. If it wasn't indigo and it was

blue it had a tendency to fade in the early 20th century.

Star fundraiser full of embroidered names

Again, perhaps from Texas

We can see that solid colored cottons were unreliable. The quilt

below was probably once red, white & blue but most of the reds

are now tan and the blues are streaked where it was folded

and exposed to light.

It's another 1925 name quilt from Texas, the only applique in the file, (places say Dallas & 

San Antonio but also Chicago)

Individuals and organizations had blocks....A Baptist Church...

The Buisy (sic) Bees and the Ku Klux Klan

This Pennsylvania quilt is classic 1890-1930 style.

Two reds including the claret that had been around for several decades

and the popular gray prints.

Perhaps the date is the year it was quilted rather than

pieced. It's so "old-fashioned,"

but then Pennsylvania quilts tend to be old-fashioned.

A surprise on the back!

A top dated 1925 so we can be pretty sure it

was pieced in 1925---in a style popular since abut 1900.

Change was on the horizon but still a few years away. Quilters were content with simple pieced patterns, dark prints and rather minimal handwork. Little applique in the file.

A pair of quilts dated 1925 with the change that was coming---

lighter plain color fabrics. The blocks are lilac with something that looks to have faded.

And is that Nile green in this name quilt dated 1925?

You don't really see it for five years or so....

Surviving quilts tell us that wool must have been a common and available fabric. 

Style echoes earlier times but again simple and not skillfully stitched.

String quilt possibly from Tennessee

1924 & 1925 "Mother," "AOUW"

From the late Laura Fisher's inventory, covered with names...

and "A.A. OYE"

Rectangle comforters of wools possibly ripped from sample books

continued. This one with a striped flannel back and fancy ties.

Classic sample quilt continuing an early 20th-c. fashion.

Some of these dates show that embroidery skills were important.

This star is exceptional in several ways.

Complex piecing and above average quilting for the day

String/Log Cabin with note dating it to 1925 & 1926 from the Nickols 

Collection at the Mingei Museum

Name quilt from Oneida, New York

(before swastikas symbolized fascism)

Name or album quilt that follows style set in the 1840s,

several fabrics here woven patterns, no prints.

Two years down the line innovative cottons in prints and plains gave new ideas to

clever people---The Quilt Revival!