Moda's Mill Book Series: Collections for a Cause

Project Quilt

Mill Book Series: Circa 1835

Moda's latest Collection For a Cause line is called the Mill Book Series: Circa 1835

Should be in shops this month!

Mark Dunn, our boss at Moda,  found the prints in the oldest mill book in the Moda library. The very thick book is from about 1835.

I did a little detective work on the book, which is all in French.

A mill book is a bound copy of the prints a particular fabric mill produces during a season, like a scrapbook.

This particular book is full of light and airy prints in the colors Moda has reproduced.

I was trying to figure out what French mill might have kept the book and was pleased to come across words like "Koechlin" because there were Koechlin mills in Mulhouse in Alsace-Lorraine in the early nineteenth century.

But I also came across names like Schlumberger. You may think of the Schlumberger empire as based in oil equipment but they started out as textile printers in Alsace-Lorraine. Weren't Koechlin & Schlumberger competitors?

And then there swatches with the word "unknowns"---Inconnus

I wonder if this book is not a scrapbook compiled by a designer looking to lift a few ideas from his own competitors.

 I don't think anybody is going to be copying the print on the top of the page above although the dots are a good addition.

Spies---industrial espionage...

Keeping an eye on the other printers?

But who kept it?

It's still a mystery.

I like this page where it says Koechlin Brothers and then in parentheses (Mauvais) underlined.

Meaning Bad!!!

A critic.

Hey, I like these delicate pastel prints.

And I think you will too.

Remember the Collections for a Cause lines that Mark Dunn does always benefit a nonprofit and this one benefits the American Quilt Study Group.

Thank you, Mark.

Here's a link to see the whole Mill Book Collection:

http://www.unitednotions.com/fcc_Collections-Mill-Series.pdf

Elizabeth Welch's Eagle Quilt

Medallion Quilt

Elizabeth Welch

Virginia. About 1830.

Collection of the Brooklyn Museum

The cover quilt on the new Brooklyn Museum catalog is very much like the work of Anna Catherine Markey Garnhart, particularly the eagle and the reverse appliqued vine.

See two quilts attributed to Garnhart from the collection of the Museum of the Daughters of the American Revolution:

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=46-7A-C3

http://www2.matrix.msu.edu/~quilti/fulldisplay.php?kid=46-7A-2B

Anna Catherine Hummel Markey Garnhart

1773-1860

Frederick, Maryland

Bobbi Finley's interpretation of the D.A.R.'s quilt

for an AQSG Quilt Study a few years ago.

My first reaction upon seeing the Welch quilt in the Brooklyn Museum's online catalog that it must be one of the Garnhart quilts. But there is some historical basis for the attribution to Elizabeth Welsh of western Virginia.

The Brooklyn Museum's quilt is pictured in William Rush Dunton's Old Quilts (1945) on page 216. He photographed Maryland quilts and included some from the collection or the family of Mrs. Louis Frederic Leiter. His information about the quilt:

"Another gorgeous appliqued quilt owned by Mrs. Leiter was made by Miss Elizabeth Weltch of Warren County West Virginia at an unknown time. Its size 9' ...wide and I would tentatively date it before 1830."

The first problem is there is no Warren County, West Virginia (which didn't separate from Virginia till 1863). Warren County, Virginia is west of Arlington and therefore close to Washington DC and Baltimore.

Pauline Eppley Leiter was what was known as an antiquarian.

Here a photo from the Baltimore Sun

shows her with a piece of silver.

Her husband worked for a Hagerstown department store.

My guess is that Pauline Leiter's quilt collection was sold sometime before her death in 1984. This quilt  wound up in the Brooklyn Museum in 1978.

Dr. Dunton added some more to his description of Elizabeth Welsh's quilt:

"It is of interest that a clipping from the New York Sun of January 20, 1937 shows a similar quilt owned by Mrs. Arthur Lindstrom of Cos Cob [Connecticut]. The eagle here has its head turned the opposite way, but is similar in form. There is no vine above it but there are thirteen stars. The vines at the corners have the same curves but the leaves are differently shaped. The chintz motifs do not show well in the reproduction."

Good eye, Dr. Dunton!

I found the clipping on line. Nothing shows well in the reproduction but I lightened it up and got a vague image of an eagle and a similar vine.

Welch quilt left/Lindstrom quilt right

Mrs. Joseph Peto was quilt dealer and scholar

 Florence Peto, who often sold her quilts to museums. 

So now we have several mysteries to solve.

• Was Elizabeth Welch (Weltch) related to Anna Catherine Hummell Markey Garnhart?
• Why did Pauline Leiter attribute her quilt to Welch?
• Where is Mrs. Arthur Lindstrom's quilt now?

The curators at the D.A.R. Museum have been working on the puzzle for some time.

The big question, however, is:

How the heck did Anna Catherine Markey Garnhart make so many spectacular quilts?

Eagle from a Baltimore Album Quilt

1845-1860

The whole thing reminds me of the cult of Mary Evans. You may remember in the 1980s that many Baltimore album quilts of the 1840s and '50s were wrongly attributed to one woman identified as Mary Evans. Quilt historians now believe that several different seamstresses and pattern makers collaborated on those hundreds of quilts, with perhaps some dominant, well-established designers who sold patterns and probably kits to many different seamstresses.

Could we have here an earlier Maryland pattern drafter, a kit maker or a needlework teacher? Or perhaps, like Baltimore designer Achsah Wilkins, a woman supervising a group of seamstresses?

In the introduction to the Brooklyn Museum catalog I participated in the roundtable discussion much concerned with myths about quilts. Janneken Smucker raised a question about mythologizing quiltmaking as a form of expression and empowerment..."rather than acknowledging the role of professionals, of commerce, and of industrialization." 

I followed with: "Our default thinking when we see a quilt is 'one woman, one work of art.' We are repeatedly surprised to learn that quilts and handmade bedcovers have been produced in workshop-like situations. One surprising example is the workshop of Achsah Goodwin Wilkins of Baltimore...We have a hard time incorporating the story of Wilkins and her factory into our mythology about quilts."

Could we have here another surprising example of some kind of commerce and professionalism that doesn't fit our mythology?

Some links to more about Garnhart quilts:

Another Garnhart quilt in the Plains Indians & Pioneers Museum:

http://www.pipm1.org/all-exhibits/the-federal-eagle-quilt/

A blog post by Bobbi Finley

http://bobbifinleytilequilts.blogspot.com/2011/08/eagle-quilts.html

Some posts by me about early eagle applique.

http://quilt1812warandpiecing.blogspot.com/2011/09/quilt-from-era.html

http://quilt1812warandpiecing.blogspot.com/2011/10/more-eagles-for-ideas.html

An article in the Baltimore Sun about the Garnhart quilts. Nancy Gibson organized an exhibit of several similar quilts at the D.A.R. Museum in 1991.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-06-23/features/1991174178_1_quilts-garnhart-american-revolution/2

Borders as a Dating Clue

Pieced block, appliqued border, probably 1840-1880

I spent a few pages on the topic of borders in my 1989 book Clues in the Calico, and I haven't much to add to those conclusions. I thought I'd expand on the principles though, because one can add a lot more images on a blog.

Indigo compass or pincushion pattern

with appliqued border.

Most of these photos are from online auctions.

Here's one weak clue I mentioned:

"One more observation that can serve a a weak clue to date: the combination of a pieced border on an applique quilt (or vice versa) is more typical of a pre-twentieth century quilt. [20th century quilters] are far more likely to match applique borders to applique quilts and pieced orders to pieced quilts."

Based on the border I am guessing mid-19th-century.

But you don't see that many antique quilts with the contrasting border technique.

1840-1865

Cut out chintz and pieced border, probably 1840-1860

Border may have been added later it's so incongruous.

Indigo pieced sunflowers and appliqued border

probably 1840-1880

A pieced quilt with an appliqued border

from the Riverside Museum in California, dated 1852.

Swag borders with pieced designs

Applique with pieced borders

It's much more difficult to date a quilt from a photo because you are going on style alone rather than adding important clues like fabric design, quilting pattern, binding, backing, etc.

But this contrast of piecing and applique is a style clue---a weak clue to a date before 1880.

What seems to be more important in dating is the elaborateness of the border. Quilters working after 1880 were not so likely to make such complicated applique borders. A topic for another post.

Rhythm: A Different Beat

Quilts have great visual appeal, due in part to the sense of rhythm in the pattern repeat.

The repeat of a block design sets up a beat.

It's not only the pattern that contributes to the rhythm, it's the intervals between the pattern---the negative space.

Colors we view as neutrals work well as intervals in the negative space.

Black or white is very effective.

Once you add color, texture and pattern to the intervals you get a different rhythm.

With busier intervals you get a more complex rhythm.

A more exciting rhythm

Perhaps tooooo exciting.

You could set up a calm versus chaos continuum.

And decide where you fit.

Perhaps the quilt above is too static for you.

The calmest quilts have isolated designs in regular repeat with a cool neutral in the intervals.

The more pattern you add to the intervals the less calm the design

The scale of the pattern in the intervals also affects the rhythm.

You can increase the beat with a variety of prints

Until it's just too much.

Elsa Van Freytag---perhaps too much---but never dull.

You have to find your own rhythm.

I've been thinking a lot about design and quilts and I have several modern print reproduction collections for Moda on the horizon. Check out my new blog called:

Historically Modern Quilts

http://historicallymodernquilts.blogspot.com/

I'll do posts like this one about design, have a weekly Modern Print Monday and a monthly free pattern for needlework based on traditional modernism (an oxymoron!).