Sewing Insurrection

Wistar Family  Quilt, blocks inscribed1842-1843

IQSC collection #2005.059.0001

https://www.internationalquiltmuseum.org/about/quilt-month/album-0

Needlework has long been a medium for dissent.

Quilt inscribed 1814

      

Our current culture inspired by the ideals of Beavis, Butt-Head and Bro demands protest from the streets to the sewing room.

Sew, Sue Me!

The Seamsters' Union is working on their second

Sunbonnet Sue protest quilt "A Pieceful Protest." My job this week is

to find some gold lame. 

If you are looking for inspiration do read the posts on our Facebook group page:

SuperSueQuilts 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1133604988289574

And there are plenty of other needleworkers using textile media to protest and demand change. Below a few of the many I found online:

Quilt: Against Erasure

Lisa Rackner

 

Embroidery: Days of Rage

Melora Bales at Harvest Moon TieDye

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1857388144/sunbonnet-sue-days-of-rage-collection

Embroidery: Tiny Pricks Project

Diana Weymar 

Weymar's first Tiny Pricks project

Diana Weymar has been advocating rebellious needlework since 2018 with her "Tiny Pricks Project" (it's a double entendre, kids.) She began embroidering quotes from the 45th President on vintage needlework items. 

Over the years the project has evolved into embroidered quotes from numerous stitchers onto textiles of all kinds ---quotes both from the 47th Commander in Chief and many from his critics. 

Most are stitched to old handkerchiefs, good use for an archaic textile. She has thousands of donations and has exhibited them occasionally in the past seven years. “ 'Tiny Pricks' is a digital quilt that never stops growing." 

Her Tiny Pricks Instagram page:

https://www.instagram.com/tinypricksproject/?hl=en

SewMaryHappy recently posted this on Instagram. Look for the keyword: protestquilt

https://www.instagram.com/explore/search/keyword/?q=%23protestquilt

And then there is the T-shirt--- a textile serving as the broadside poster of our times.

Quilt Journeys: State Blocks for EQ

 

https://electricquilt.com/online-shop/quilt-journeys/

For the U.S.A.'s 250th Anniversary this year I've been considering quilts to celebrate with several posts here on what kind of patchwork would be authentic for the18th-century's last quarter during and after our Revolutionary War. Scroll back to see a few.....

But the celebratory quilt doesn't have to be period-correct. We can reflect our own style in a block-style quilt honoring the fifty states or our own home with Quilt Journeys, a new computer program for Electric Quilt Software.

It's an add-on program for EQ8 with pieced blocks and appliqué motifs that represent the United States and Canada alongside fun, historical facts. The program adds dozens of blocks to your Block Library and you look them up by state. Like the rest of EQ's content you can print the block any size or alter it if you like.

Here's your options for Alaska's pieced blocks.

You also get patterns for finished designs that can be customized for

the various states. This is a page for Illinois.

The series began when I wrote regularly for Quilter's Newsletter Magazine beginning in the mid 1970s with America's Bicentennial Celebration.

My sources were earlier publications that printed designs named for states and cities.

As we entered the computer age EQ adapted the series to a program on a disk in the back of a book in 2001.

This is going to be a lot easier. More later.....

Read a post on the EQ blog here:

New Add-on: Quilt Journeys | The Electric Quilt Blog

American Quilt Style: Democracy Blooms

National Museum of American History

Smithsonian Institution

Quilt date-inscribed 1795 M Campbell. Detail. 

The dark brown is reverse applique with

the light overlay cut to reveal the print underneath.

https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_556173

Considering stitching a period reproduction of a quilt for the 250th anniversary of democracy this year? I've been looking at museum quilts that reflect the first 25 years of American independence and have come up with a couple of ideas. See posts here:

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2025/11/250th-anniversary-quilt-pattern.html

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2025/12/knickerbocker-puzzle-early-american.html

Further digging has inspired me to include a third pattern. Rather than a a patriotic eagle in the center a vase with a spindly floral bouquet seems to be most appropriate based on reliably dated patchwork quilts from the first years of our independence.

D.A.R. Museum Collection

The vase at the top of the post is reverse appliqued, a technique requiring skill. Are the rest of the early versions reverse appliqued rather than conventional, onlaid applique?

A pattern below with many of the common designs seen in the five similar quilts:

• Floral container with handles
• Various flowers and leaves on long stems
• Symmetrical arrangement (2 way bilateral symmetry)
• Repeated elements such as the 8-lobed rose, tulip and an iris-like floral
• Applique image is cotton with dark brown (plum, chocolate) background & floral print, popular at the time for women's garments.

Collection of Historic Deerfield

Gown 1780-1790  

https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2002.11

Digital sketch of the central vase in Hannah John's star medallion, 

date-inscribed 1797 documented by the Maine project. You can see

Hannah's bouquet is taller and rangier than the pattern here.

Art Institute of Chicago Collection

Detail :Bedrug attributed to Hannah Johnson (1770–1848) 

New London County, Connecticut, initialed & dated 1797.

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/49691/bed-rug

Lynne Zacek Bassett, the expert on American bed rugs that preceded patchwork quilts as popular and valuable bedcovers, reminded me of common design in these woolen spreads. This one by Hannah Johnson is similar to Hannah John's 1797 patchwork quilt.

Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection

As is this bedrug dated 1796 with initials NL, attributed to Connecticut.

https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ad/original/DT11600.jpg

Caption from Lynne's 2022 exhibit at the Florence Griswold Museum 

New London County Quilts & Bed Covers, 1750–1825

The visual and biographic coincidences led Lynne to realize that American women in the newly independent state of Connecticut were embroidering copies of European loop-pile bedrugs in a regional fashion in New London County, probably obtaining patterns and instruction in needlework classes. That explanation also may explain similarities in the patchwork vase quilts. A needlework teacher offered a popular pattern and/or lessons....

...to the first generation of American women enjoying

 new access to European prints

Below are two sheets to print on 8-1/2 x 11" paper.

The finished quilts are small but do see this pattern for more borders.

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2025/11/250th-anniversary-quilt-pattern.html

------------

Another border option is a dog-tooth applique border they called Van Dyck style trim. 

Jeanna Kimball shows you how to stitch a period border in her Ultimate Visual Guide

The footed vase a standard image for centuries

A Patchwork Caraco

I've been spending time costume scrolling---good for the mental health in stressful times. 
It's like shopping but no buyers' remorse.

And I came across this caraco in the Nordish Museum (Nordiska Museet) in Stockholm, Sweden. I've been blogging about caracos (short jackets with a peplum ---the ruffle around the hips) because they are such a good example of international trade and textiles in the 17th and 18th centuries. This is the first early patchwork caraco jacket I have seen. The caption dates it to the 18th century, My lack of Swedish prevents me from navigating their catalog so I can't find much more about it.

See more about caracos at these posts:

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2025/12/caracos-around-world.html
https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2025/12/caraco-jackets-fashioning-hypothesis.html

 
Short jackets were a fashion fad joining European women of all classes in the 17th and 18th centuries. French aristocrat Madame Pompadour is pictured in one as is a German servant with a tray of chocolate, painted in 1745 by Jean Etienne Liotarca that's become a worldwide marketing image.

"The Chocolate Girl" and a fashion plate

Cut is similar with fabrics from both ends of the financial spectrum.

Ackermann's London publishing house released a book on Dutch costume by Miss Semple in
1817. Who was Miss Semple? She remains anonymous. Watercolors of the Dutch women show
the popularity of chintz skirts and jackets of different lengths

Dutch correspondents Conny, Titia and I are collecting names in various languages:

DUTCH
“Jak" & “Jakje” = jacket
“Vrouwenjak" = woman’s jacket
"Kinderjakje" = jacket for children)
“Kassakijntje” (Kassakeinjte) = jacket in the Hindeloopen area
“Kroplattan” = a short jacket

1790

FRENCH
“Caraco” = a camisole [caraçao pronounced kara-sow] perhaps from Turkish kerrake alpaca coat
“Cassaquin”
“Pierrot”

SWEDISH
“Kofta” = jacket

AMERICAN

"Calico Short Gown"

1959 Postcard

Woman dressed in traditional caraco style worn in Hindeloopen, Netherlands

France 1760s ---about 25 years before the 

French Revolution changed fashion & society

Read more by Kenna Libes at Fashion History Timeline.
https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/caraco/