The Fan Fad Evolves

I was looking to make a case for a date on a fan quilt so

I went through my file of date-inscribed quilts to help make

that point that fancy fans were earlier than more utilitarian quilts.

Collection of the San Jose Quilt Museum dated

1883-4

The earliest fan blocks I found were several in early crazy

quilts dated 1882 and 1883. Some of these early crazy

quilts had one fan, but this one has four in the corners.

Signed 1884 Emily Sprague, Mattwan NY

In the early 1880s the fan showed up as a repeat block, usually of silks and wools with the same kind of elaborate embroidery stitches and pictures seen on crazy quilts in the 1880s.

1893

The fancy embroidery continued into the 1890s.

1893 Mount Carmel 

Collection of the Smithsonian Institution

1894

1894 Ima Frank Richie, Virginia

1896 Quilt Index North Carolina project

Many of the late 19th-century examples in the file

show variety and skill in the embroidery. The fabrics were elegant

silk and wool scraps in show quilt style.

1896 Duglas Acres

 Here's a signature quilt with many names, and little decorative embroidery

The look is more austere but that

ruffle indicates it is more for show than for warmth.

1897

In the late 1890s changes occur.

One change is that the fans are often combined into

circles or wheels. 

1897

Another is that the silks begin to vanish from the scrap bag,

replaced by more everyday wools. This is probably explained

by the changes in international trade in silk, making the scraps

 less available.

1902

R.B. 1903

While embroidery continues, the trend is towards less variety...

More of this feather stitch or briar stitch.

Fewer unusual or complex stitches. 

Pictorial embroidery becomes scarcer.

1903 Columbia County Pennsylvania

1905 or 1906

Four fan blocks

equal what we call a Dresden Plate or Wheel

1905 Grandma

1909 William

1912 Lizzie Miller

There is less skill in the embroidery as the new century passes.

1912 Mother

Here's the last one in the dated quilt file that looks to be show quilt style,

nicely embroidered, although without much variety.

And dated 1918

Another big change in the 1890s was

the switch from wool and silk to cotton.

Red and white fans are often seen. Embroidery was rarely added to cotton.

This sampler, dated 1893, is a style affected by the coming of the commercial pattern purchased

through the mail.

I had no fan or wheel quilts dated in the 1920s, which could mean that people were less likely to sign and date their quilts in the 1920s or that the fan fad had played out.

In the 1930s  we see a new style.

Each of these three in the pastel cotton scrap look is

dated 1930

New look, new fad.

Style changes that are useful in dating fan quilts

Here we have one with the numerals "81" in a corner.

Someone thought this meant 1881 but the quilt looks nothing like

the other fans or wheels from the 19th century.

It's probably 1930-1950, when the new-fashioned fans were so popular. That 81 embroidered in white could be the maker's age,or she might have kept count of the quilts she made.

It does not mean 1881 or 1981. The style just doesn't fit those dates.

Cheddar Exhibit at American Quilt Study Group Seminar

AQSG's seminar always features quilt shows

on the meeting premises and in local museums.

Here's a glimpse of one of the onsite exhibits.

Being in Wisconsin, home of the cheeseheads, 

we were treated to a display of cheddar colored quilts.

If you are confused---all you need to know

is it has to do with football.

The first few are from the collection of Seminar co-chair

Carol Butzke of Wisconsin.

Kathlyn Sullivan has collection of North Carolina

quilts featuring the fabric.

Can't recall which collector's this one is.

Above and below, Carol's

The last one is Kathy's.

Textile specialists call the color Chrome Orange after the

dye that created it, but everybody today calls it Cheddar.

Richmond Reds: Springfield

Springfield is the largest print in my new

Richmond Reds collection of repro prints.

Springfield in Mahogany Red

We found the document print in an antique sample

book in the Moda collection. I liked the graceful

tossed repeat and the detail in the original drawing

Springfield in Rebel Red

It has a very characteristic middle-of-the-19th-century

look, mainly in the dark outline around lighter stems. The range

of madder shades of creams, reds, tans and chocolate is also typical

of the style.

Bright Star

Here Georgann Eglinski has used the Shirting

Cream colorway for her first block in the

Austen Family Album series (see the link to the free patterns in the

left hand column.)

Block 10--Good Fortune

Bronze colorway

Chocolate colorway

Copperplate Colorway

We've used the Rebel Red colorway for the

border in the Richmond Red kit.

The Lincoln house in Springfield, Illinois

Why Springfield for the print name?

It's Lincoln's hometown in Illinois

but it's also one of the most popular town names in the U.S.,

even if you don't count the Simpson's mythical Springfield.

So if you don't feel good about using the Rebel Red colorway

to remember Springfield, Illinois, consider the print named for 

Springfield, Georgia

or

Springfield, Arkansas

Exhibits: Antique Quilts /Fall & Winter 2014

Robert Doisneau, The Tabou, Paris, 1947

Grab the gang and catch the fall quilt shows 

featuring antique quilts.

California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Big Quilts in Small Sizes. Ten diminutive quilts chosen from the museum's collection. Through January 4, 2015.
http://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/big-quilts-small-sizes-childrens-historical-bedcovers

California, San Jose

San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles. Antique Ohio Amish Quilts from the Darwin Bearley Collection, 40 bed, crib and doll quilts, illustrating the breadth of the Ohio Amish quilt making tradition between 1880 and 1940. November 15, 2014 – March 1, 2015.

http://www.sjquiltmuseum.org/exhibitions.html

Colorado, Denver

Denver Art Museum. First Glance - Second Look: Quilts from the Collection, through March 22, 2015.

http://www.denverartmuseum.org/exhibitions/first-glance-second-look-quilts-denver-art-museum-collection

Catalog available for $10.95

http://shop.denverartmuseum.org/SelectSKU.aspx?skuid=1061026

Connecticut, New Britain
New Britain Museum of American Art. Let Me Quilt One More Day. "Curated by Dr. Douglas Hyland... over 40 historical and contemporary quilts." Through January 4, 2015,

http://www.nbmaa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32&Itemid=56

Massachusetts, Concord

Concord Museum. Behind Closed Doors: Asleep in New England  includes bedding and quilts.

Curated by Jane and Richard Nylander.

October 10, 2014 - March 22, 2015

http://www.concordmuseum.org/behind-closed-doors.php

Massachusetts, Lowell
New England Quilt Museum:
Humorous Quilts: Keeping Us In Stitches, October 9-December 31, 2014,

http://nequiltmuseum.org/home.html

Michigan, Adrian

Lenawee County Historical Museum. Antique Quilt Exhibit, through December, 2014.

http://www.lenaweemuseum.org/uploads/6/9/5/0/6950317/flyer.pdf

Nebraska, Lincoln

International Quilt Study Center and Quilt Museum:

Design Dynamics of Log Cabins from the Holstein collection, through November 29, 2014.

Modern Marvels: Quilts made from Kits, curated by Marin Hanson & Deborah Rake, features 20th century designers, companies, and publications well-known for their kits. Through February 28, 2015.

Signature Cloths, guest-curated by Lynn Setterington, the exhibit "focuses on sewn signatures as visual ciphers and as a method of social engagement, with emphasis on the autographs of ordinary people." Through May 31, 2015.

http://www.quiltstudy.org/exhibitions/  

Vermont, Shelburne

Shelburne Museum:

Homefront & Battlefield: Quilts & Context in the Civil War, through January 1, 2015. This show from the American Textile History Museum will then travel to the Nebraska State Historical Society in Lincoln, opening February 1, 2015.

http://shelburnemuseum.org/exhibitions

Virginia, Christiansburg

Montgomery Museum and Lewis Miller Regional Art Center. A Pieced History: Quilts of Montgomery County.  Twenty locally made historical quilts, through April, 2015.

http://montgomerymuseum.org/

Virginia, Williamsburg

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, A Celebration of Quilts "features dozens of quilts that represent the diversity of quilts made in America from the 18th through 20th centuries. Several of the quilts are new to the collection and have never before been seen by the public."

Through June, 2016.

http://www.history.org/history/museums/abby_art_current.cfm

Wisconsin, Cedarburg
Wisconsin Museum of Quilts & Fiber Arts:  

Jud and Luella Doss Vintage Wool Quilt Collection. October 15, 2014, - January 18, 2015

http://wiquiltmuseum.com/

Washington D.C.

D.A.R. Museum. Eye on Elegance: Early Quilts of Maryland and Virginia
Through September 5, 2015.

Applique Flower Basket dated 1849

by Anna Catherine Hummel Markey Garnhart

Curator of Costume and Textiles Alden O’Brien looks at quilts from Maryland and Virginia in an exhibit of 36 quilts with a focus on quilts from 1790 to 1860, design migrations and the many hands who made the quilts.

http://www.dar.org/museum