IQSC Quilt of the Month

Original design, Medallion. Frances Hawkins. Made in United Kingdom, dated 1818. Mosaic patchwork technique and appliqué. 96” x 85”. Collection of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum #2006.035.0001. Purchase made possible through James Foundation Acquisition Fund.

If you subscribe to the Quilt of the Month email from the International Quilt Study Center and Museum you were treated to a view of this quilt for May. The unquilted mosaic medallion is one of the twenty template-pieced bedcovers that will be on display at the Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska from May 28, 2011 through January 11, 2012. Elegant Geometry: American and British Mosaic Patchwork is curated by Bridget Long. Click here to see more about the show:

http://www.quiltstudy.org/exhibitions/online_exhibitions/mosaic.html

I recently got to study this quilt closely. I am always thrilled to see an early quilt and especially one with a date inscribed so I can see what kind of fabrics were in use at that date. Frances Hawkins used some very bright yellows. The yellow-ground chintz was popular here in the teens too.

Some of the prints, like the red on blue spade design, look to be block printed. The figure is very crude. Others look like the latest in roller prints. The European mills were making great strides in detail and color combinations during the first twenty years of the 19th century and Frances seems to have had all the latest fabrics.

Here's a side view of the tree that comes out of the basket in the center. Notice in the rosette below the bird are two hexagons with precisely positioned stars. I thought I'd seen that print before....

I found something very similar in my picture files. This mosaic quilt was sold online several years ago and had the same kind of strange pinstripe with a crudely printed star. The two quiltmakers each fussy cut the star (to use a new term for an old idea.) The other quilt is dated 1825 and signed with the initials L.F.

The star prints aren't exactly the same but they both look like the stars are stamped, stencilled or free-hand painted onto a roller-printed pinstripe. The similarities raise many questions.

Overall view of L.F.'s quilt

L.F

1825

A..d 9 Y...S

(Aged 9 years)

Contrast these two British quilts (I am guessing L.F.'s quilt was made in Great Britain although it is now in America) with the American made quilts in the previous post: Quite a difference between our domestic prints and the European prints in the first few decades of the 19th century.

Plan to go to Lincoln to see the Elegant Geometry show at the International Quilt Study Center and Museum. You'll have a wonderful time looking at the quilts and the prints.

If you don't get the free Quilt of the Month email you should sign up here:
http://www.quiltstudy.org/collections/quilt_of_the_month/join.html

Hexagons Again

Hexagon patchwork from about 1830 with the papers and the basting still in them.

Susan wants to know:

Are quilts with paper templates “quilted”? Are they stitched---quilted through the layers? Are they quilted around the pieces? Are they tied or are they just backed and unquilted? It seems they would need to be held together some how especially with the added weight of the paper. I guess some women removed the paper but it seems most I’ve seen are unfinished.

It depends.

In England, 19th-century quiltmakers (note I didn't say quilters) often left the papers in and they finished off the edges to make what we might call a summer spread---an unquilted top.

Early 19th century British medallion

See more about it at: http://www.oldfashionedstuff.co.uk/id12.html

In America, 19th-century quiltmakers sometimes removed the papers and quilted the piece. And sometimes they didn't.

Early 19th-century, quilted hexagon medallion

See more about this terrific quilted version at Betsy Telford-Goodwin's web site:
http://www.rockymountainquilts.com/files/antiquequilt_btcefp.php

The later in the century,  the more likely the hexagon quilts were to have been quilted and to have been pieced with a running stitch rather than to have been pieced over papers with a whip stitch.

Detail of a quilt top in the 1890s or so, probably pieced in conventional running stitch

After 1880 or so the idea of using the paper templates behind the hexagons became so-o-o-o-19th-century and most quiltmakers stitched their hexagons together using the standard running stitch without any papers. And quilted or tied them.

Quilted hexagon quilt from 1860-1890

Some hexagon quilts from recent online auctions

This one from the late 19th century is made of wools, silks, blends, etc.

It looks pretty heavy, yet it's quilted close to the seam with a tiny red stitch.

When the hexagon idea became a new fad in the 1930s, nobody used paper and they quilted their Grandmother's Flower Gardens.

Grandmother's Flower Garden from the 1930s.

Quilters usually quilted around each hexagon.

See a rather fancy 30's version by clicking here:
http://www.nebraskahistory.org/images/sites/mnh/quilts_a_z/8027-16.jpg

This British medallion with appliqued rosettes was shown at Houston's Quilt Festival last fall. It's not quilted at all, as far as I can tell.

Susi at Susi's Quilts found it online and was inspired to make a reproduction. I had seen it the year before in an online British auction. See more Houston pictures at Virginia Cole's Galloping Pony blog.

http://gallopingpony.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/friday-find-41/

Watch Susi's progress here:

http://susisquilts.blogspot.com/2010/03/ein-neuanfang-und-ein-fortschritt-new.html