A Texas Secession Quilt?

February 18, 2017, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Yankee Diary Block 2: Susan B.'s Star

This Lone Star quilt was recently offered in an online auction, advertised as:

"Sumner County, Tennessee Civil War era quilt in the 'Lone Star' pattern, made by Mary Jane Harris Pond in 1861 to commemorate Texas joining the Confederacy."

What a great story! But I doubt it's accuracy.

It is indeed a Lone Star quilt. I am concerned about the estimated date of 1861---and thus the link with Texas secession. The pattern, a single star of diamonds floating in a background, could certainly be that old. But the fabrics are wrong for that date.

Which gives me an opportunity to analyze my intuitive impression as to why it couldn't be that old.

It looks like it's cotton --- not very high quality cotton as we can see by the fading in the blue background.

Three things jump out at me. One is the faded blues (darker blues in the star's points are also fading.) Another is the medium-brown plain fabrics in the diamonds.The last is the use of plain cottons rather than prints.

Late 19th-century, North Carolina quilt from the Taylor Family

The plain blue in the quilt above is fading from light or perhaps bleach

Many of the quilts here are from the Quilt Index. Others from online auctions.

I've been collecting photos of post-Civil-War Southern quilts. See a post on more style characteristics here.
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2017/02/southern-quilt-style-cut-from-same-cloth.html

1) There were two basic blue dyes for cotton in 1861. Indigo and Prussian blue. Indigo, a vegetable dye, does not fade like this but Prussian blue, a mineral dye, might (Laundry alkalies were hard on Prussian blue). By 1880 there were many other blue dyes available---synthetics that were quite unreliable. The blues often faded to shades of gray.

Tennessee quilt by Mary Clift Hall Dunning, estimated to date from the

last quarter of the 19th century

The grid quilting is also similar to the Lone Star quilt.

The blue in the quilt in question looks like a synthetic dye---the way the dye remains sunk in the quilting stitches and the way it's blotched. Synthetic dyes with their characteristic fading were not available until about 1880 in the U.S.

Quilt from an Arkansas family.

Did all those white triangles used to be green?

This is an extreme example of a probable synthetic dye fading completely away.

2) The plain brown cotton is very typical of Southern quilts, such as might be made in Tennessee or North Carolina---But made after the Civil War rather than during the Civil War. The brown, which can tend towards red or green, was popular with Southern quilters decades after the Civil War.

Star block design made by Eliza Longworth, North Carolina.

My guess is that the plain brown was one of the inexpensive cottons that new Southern mills specialized in after 1870 or so. It was cheap and rather mediocre in color, fastness and weave, but Southern quilters developed a distinctive and dramatic style around plain-colored, locally manufactured cloth....

String quilt of solid browns and woven checks & stripes.

About 1910.

Center of a Lone Star quilt dated 1879 with browns and yellow solids....

Making the best of a bad situation as far as access to quiltmaking fabrics

3) Which brings us to the last style characteristic in the Pond star quilt: All plain colors. The South did not invest in fabric manufacturing mills until after the Civil War.

Photographer Lewis Hines documented American mills in the

early 20th century. The Inverness Mills were in Virginia.

Women working at a mill in Lumberton, North Carolina.

Hines's photos of mills North & South are in the Library of Congress.

Without skilled printers the local mills relied on dyed cottons, either plain-colored or dyed-in-the-yarn and woven into stripes and plaids. Calicoes continued to be a Northern specialty for decades.

Smithy Pennington, North Carolina

Quilt signed and dated 1890 J.H. Latham, North Carolina

The solid red, synthetically-dyed fabric above is extremely fugitive but the chrome orange holds up well. This is one of the very few date-inscribed examples of the plain cloth, Southern-style quilt I've seen.

Detail of a Rocky Mountain or Crown of Thorns quilt from Tennessee's

Bingham family.

Throwing in a little local chrome orange was brilliant.

Very few of these vivid quilts are date-inscribed but experienced quilt historians, dealers and appraisers tend to date the style as 1875-1900.

Which is when I think Mary Jane Pond's quilt was made and probably late in the 19th century if not the early 20th.

The sale text gives us a little information about Mary Jane herself.

"Mary Jane Harris Pond, daughter of Green Berry Harris and second wife of Captain William Guthrie Pond, CSA. According to family history, Mrs. Pond made the quilt for her brother in 1861."

I tried to do genealogical research on Mary Jane and her husband. But those lists of names and numbers are far more complicated and not nearly as interesting as fabrics and style. I couldn't find any credible Mary Harris Pond.

So I hope you didn't bid on the Lone Star for the Civil War story. What you got was a very nice late-19th-century or early-20th-century Tennessee quilt. Just don't hang it in the sun.

I spent several hours going through the Quilt Index and the quilts recorded in Tennessee & North Carolina. There are some great ones---early and late.
Go to the search page
http://www.quiltindex.org/search.php
Scroll down to State Made and scroll to Tennessee or North Carolina.

Star quilt by Grandmother Allen, Tennessee.

Last quarter of the 19th century.

↧

Yankee Diary Block 2: Susan B.'s Star

February 22, 2017, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Quilts Buried with the Silver 1

≪ Previous: A Texas Secession Quilt?

Block 2 Susan B.'s Star by Barbara Brackman

From Carrie's Diary: December 20, 1855.

"Susan B. Anthony is in town and spoke in Bemis Hall this afternoon. She made a special request that all the seminary girls should come to hear her as well as all the women and girls in town. She had a large audience and she talked very plainly about our rights and how we ought to stand up for them, and said the world would never go right until the women had just as much right to vote and rule as the men.

"She asked us all to come up and sign our names who would promise to do all in our power to bring about that glad day when equal rights should be the law of the land. A whole lot of us went up and signed the paper. "

Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) at 28 years old,

a few years before she

began her New York speaking campaign.

Susan B.'s Star by Becky Brown

Susan B. Anthony stopped in Carrie's town of Canandaigua on her second New York tour in 1855. She'd determined to speak in every county in the state of New York, traveling by railroad, sleigh and carriage to gather signatures for a petition demanding that the state legislature grant women child custody in divorce cases, control over personal earnings and the right to vote.

Bemis Hall was in the top floor over the bookstore

in the tallest building in the photograph here taken by

Augustus Coleman in 1858.

Anthony crossed the state from Long Island to Lake Ontario, speaking every other day. She used a gift of $50 from activist Wendell Phillips to print handbills and newspaper advertisements announcing her arrival and sold small publications to support herself. She often attracted a good-sized crowd. People came just to see the novelty of a woman addressing an audience, a rather alarming breach of propriety.

An Ulster County newspaper described a speech:

"At the appointed hour a lady, unattended and unheralded, quietly glided in [and] ascended the platform.. under 600 curious eyes...put her decorous shawl on one chair and a very exemplary bonnet on another, sat a moment, smoothed her hair discreetly, and then deliberately walked to the table and addressed the audience. She wore a becoming black silk dress [the reporter then goes on to describe her looks and hairstyle.] Her voice well modulated and musical, her enunciation distinct, her style earnest and impressive, her language pure and unexaggerated."

Petitions were a means of changing laws.

This one from the Library of Congress collection

concerns Anthony's right to vote.

Officials rarely acted no matter how many women signed.

Carrie was impressed enough by Anthony's afternoon speech to sign her petition and tell Grandmother Beals about it, who...

"said she guessed Susan B. Anthony had forgotten that St. Paul said the women should keep silence. I told her, no, she didn't for she spoke particularly about St. Paul and said if he had lived in these times, instead of 1800 years ago, he would have been as anxious to have the women at the head of the government as she was. I could not make Grandmother agree with her at all and she said we might better all of us stayed at home."

Anthony's brazenness must have inspired another Canandaigua woman to speak in public that night.

"We went to prayer meeting this evening and a woman got up and talked. Her name was Mrs. Sands. We hurried home and told Grandmother and she said she probably meant all right and she hoped we did not laugh."

Susan B.'s Star by Denniele Bohannon

The following year Susan B. Anthony began directing her attention to the abolitionist cause, signing on as an agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society, a cause Grandmother may have had more sympathy for.

Woman with a fabric flag pinned to her dress.

Cased photo from Swann Gallery auction.

Friendship Quilt (detail) attributed to Susan B Rogers, Brooklyn,

New York, NMAH Smithsonian Institution

Susan B.'s Star

The star with flags was inspired by a block in an 1867 quilt by/or for New Yorker Susan B. Rogers. See the quilt in the collection of the Smithsonian by clicking here:

http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_556497

Block signed H. M. ? in Susan B. Rogers quilt.

Becky's in gray tones

The Block
Star and two flags appliqued to a 15" finished block.

For the background cut a square of fabric 15-1/2" x 15-1/2". Fold it in quarters and press to mark the center point.

For the flagstaffs holding up the flags. Cut 2 strips that finish to 1/2" wide (cut 1" wide). Cut each 5-1/2" long.

The Star
The templates:
Print the template for an 8-1/2" finished star. Add seams.
Piece the five points together, join them and applique the star.

Denniele pieced each of her split star points from two templates. Cut 5 of those going one way and 5 going the other.

Note: she appliqued a second star over the point where 10 seams meet in the center, a good solution to a possible problem.

To Print:

Create a word file or a new empty JPG file.
Click on the image above.
Right click on it and save it to your file.
Print that file so the star is 8-1/2" wide, which extends beyond the page. You'll lose two points but if you need them you can add them.
Add seam allowances when you cut the fabric.

Becky & I used a wide stripe and fussy cut it to shade the points. I cut 5 points with seams added, pieced them into a star and appliqued it.

Place the star so the central point in the block is slightly below the top star point.

Baste or glue it in place leaving room for the flagstaffs at the top.

The Flags

Make 4 flags this month, two waving left and two waving right. You'll use two in Block 2 and save two for later blocks. I appliqued mine. Below are piecing instructions too.

Fabric--- Flags are so iconic you can really push the imagery in the fabric and it will still read as a flag.

Mine are zigzags and polkadots but they look like a flag.

Appliqueing 4 x 5" Finished Flags

Pieced flags

This diagram is for the flag on the left above.

Reverse it for the flag on the right.

B is the starry field. Cut 4 squares 2-1/2" x 2-1/2"

A and C are the stripes.

For the bottom C cut 4 rectangles 2-1/2" x 5-1/2"

For the side A cut 4 rectangles 2-1/2" x 3-1/2"

Tuck the flag staffs under the star's top point and then tuck the flags under the staffs. Baste or glue and applique.

Block 2 will be set on the left top corner of the sampler.

Woman in a pageant costume, perhaps, with appliqued stars.

You can buy the paper patterns for the first four months of Yankee Diary from me at my Etsy Store:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/493172538/yankee-diary-bom-civil-war-quilts?ref=shop_home_active_1
Or a downloadable PDF
https://www.etsy.com/listing/506664289/yankee-diary-bom-civil-war-quilts?ref=shop_home_active_3
.

↧

Quilts Buried with the Silver 1

February 25, 2017, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Way West: Blazing a Trail

≪ Previous: Yankee Diary Block 2: Susan B.'s Star

Whig's Defeat or Missouri Beauty.

The Arizona Quilt Project recorded this quilt's family names and story.

It was kept in a tree during Civil War battles to keep marauding soldiers from

stealing it.

Quilt books have told us stories about quilts being buried, hidden and

stashed away during the Civil War ever since people have been writing quilt books.

Marie Webster's 1915 book showed an applique Virginia Rose "buried along with family silver and other valuables to protect it from depredations by...soldiers."

The New Jersey project saw a quilt from Georgia

that came with the story that it had been buried there.

Most of these quilt pictures are from the Quilt Index.

I did a search for words like "buried", "hidden" and "Civil War."

McClure Family Quilt

Mountain Heritage Center Collection

Documented by the North Carolina project.

http://www2.matrix.msu.edu/~quilti/fulldisplay.php?kid=1F-3E-2C

"Some of the information is family lore through our grandmother and some is from histories developed by various family members. The quilt supposedly was buried during the Civil War to keep it safe from Federal troops, probably stationed in east Tennessee. Another version has it that the family silver was wrapped in the quilt and buried to protect it from theft by the troops."

Often these are exceptional quilts, the family's best quilt.

Quilt by Adaline Green, the Arizona Project:

Hidden in a hollow log.

And often the quilts are damaged---with holes, fading

or stains.

Quilt by Mary Caroline Markett from the Michigan project.

The silver was wrapped in the quilt and all were buried in an iron pot.

The Kentucky project documented this faded quilt, called Missouri Belle by the family, with the story that it was hidden in a haystack.

An unusual Arkansas quilt made of six swag borders looks to have been stitched of the end-of-the-19th-century solid colors that were so prone to fading to a dun-colored tan. The family story was more elaborate:

"Due to looting by soldiers and bushwhackers, the quilt and other family possessions were buried in a wooden box. The quilt was damaged, and the lighter shades of the fabric were used to mend it after the war."

That family myth is unlikely. A more accurate caption for the quilt above might be:

This post-Civil-War quilt was made from both fugitive and color-fast reds and greens. The applique colored with natural dyes like Turkey red retained a good deal of their color. The reds and greens derived from the new and experimental synthetic dyes lost most of their color and faded to tan.

But we are dealing with myth here. The stories of the quilts being buried and damaged tell us a lot about how families passed on stories of the Civil War. Sometimes accurate history is not the point.

↧

Way West: Blazing a Trail

March 1, 2017, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Quilts Buried with the Silver 2 North & South

≪ Previous: Quilts Buried with the Silver 1

Way West: Blazing a Trail by Barbara Schaffer

Barbara has finished her Westering Womne sampler!

She used traditional fabrics with the nontraditional set.

See more photos here:

http://barbaradschaffer.blogspot.com/2017/02/its-finish.html

I've been collecting pictures of innovative sets for samplers. Maybe one will inspire you to get these blocks on the road.

Whose? Set for 12 blocks: simple and balanced.

Cotton & Steel. Vice Versa, 2016 set for 16 Blocks.

Irelleb posted this Instagram picture of her

set of Elizabeth Dackson's Lucky Star BOM

12 Blocks

Flying Squares set for 13 blocks from

NancyCabotSewAlong.blogspot.com

See a few more innovative sets at this post:
http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2017/01/way-west-set-for-westering-women.html

↧

Quilts Buried with the Silver 2 North & South

March 4, 2017, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Yankee Diary: Susan B Anthony's Star

≪ Previous: Way West: Blazing a Trail

Cut-out-chintz block quilt in the Collection of the Charleston Museum.

Attached to the quilt is a note reading:

"Got wet and stained the night of Sherman's Raid."

http://www.charlestonmuseum.org/research/collection/chintz-appliqu-quilt-top/B76C4E38-BD3C-429E-92D4-299949283958

Sherman's troops destroyed the Southern infrastructure

and terrified the population.

The North Carolina project noted they "documented a great many quilts that families believe were buried during the war. This may have been because the quilts were valued highly, or perhaps because they were suitable wrappers for silver and other family valuables."

Cotton Boll made by Temperance Neely Smoot

From the North Carolina project and the Quilt Index.

"According to the family this quilt was put in a trunk along with

other valuables and hidden in a swamp to protect it from Union invaders.

It makes sense that most of the quilts with stories of being buried or hidden are connected to quilts by Southern women, as Yankee raids of Southern land were far more common than Confederate raids on the North.

Quilt buried on Clinch Mountain

Tennessee State Library

Jeananne Wright bought this quilt with a note pinned

to it saying the Pope family buried the quilt

for safekeeping before the Battle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas in 1862.

Quilt by M.E. Poyner, Paducah, Kentucky.

Collection Bill Volkening

Found during the Kentucky project

where the family noted it was buried to protect it from raids.

Quilt attributed to Catherine Nead (1793-?), Pennsylvania

The family was said to have wrapped their valuables in quilts

to carry them from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, when

Confederate troops set the town on fire.

http://www.skinnerinc.com/auctions/2267/lots/287

Chambersburg near the Maryland border was raided three times by Southern soldiers.

How accurate are the stories?

There is much evidence that quilts and other bedding were a prime target for raiding soldiers on both sides.

One of the more enduring tales about quilt patterns

is Ruby Short McKim's 1929 story about how the original quilt

in the pattern Order No 11 was stolen from the Kreegar family

by raiding Union troops.

Note the bedding being jayhawked off Missourians' porch in

George Caleb Bingham's

painting of Order Number 11.

This high-style South Carolina chintz quilt was

stolen by a Union soldier and wound up at the Kansas

State Historical Society.

http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/civil-war-quilt/15368

http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/208306

Rose Tree Quilt

Stolen from a Southern clothesline by a Southern soldier

who cut a hole in the center to wear it as a poncho.

From Southern Quilts: Surviving Relics of the Civil War by Bets Ramsey & Merikay Waldvogel.

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2011/10/40-order-number-eleven.html

See this recent post on Sheriff Jones losing a quilt during the pre-War Kansas Troubles.
http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2017/02/sheriff-jones-loses-quilt-in-kansas.html

Cold soldiers were looking for blankets of any kind. Hiding the quilts seems logical even if burying them doesn't. Metal boxes, wooden trunks, rubber tarps might protect the quilts as well as the silver.

↧

Yankee Diary: Susan B Anthony's Star

March 8, 2017, 4:00 am

≫ Next: A Trio of Eagle Borders

≪ Previous: Quilts Buried with the Silver 2 North & South

Denniele's Block #2

with a ghostly Susan B

March 8 is International Women's Day so we're celebrating today

with Block #2 from the Yankee Diary Quilt, Susan B.'s Star.

In the 1870s Susan B. Anthony was tried in the Canandaigua New York Courthouse for "knowingly voting without having a lawful right to vote." Carrie Richards, our Yankee Diarist, was living nearby at the time and undoubtedly well aware of the trial, which received national attention.

Read more about the Canandaigua trial here:
http://grandmotherschoice.blogspot.com/2012/11/10-new-york-susan-b-anthony-breaks-law.html

Daisyusanh posted her red,white & blue block on Instagram.

#yankeediaryquilt

https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/yankeediaryquilt/?hl=en

Danice

Jeanne

Terry

Our Flickr page managed by Dustin:

https://www.flickr.com/groups/civilwarquilts2011/

Post your blocks on the Flickr page or Instagram or send pix to me and I'll post them for you.

MaterialCult@gmail.com

↧

A Trio of Eagle Borders

March 11, 2017, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Cornelia Calhoun's Quilt

≪ Previous: Yankee Diary: Susan B Anthony's Star

I tend to think of appliqued eagles as a symbol more popular before the Civil War than during.

But this trio of border eagles indicates that an eagle border might be perfect for

a Civil War reproduction quilt.

The blue eagle is from a quilt date-inscribed 1865

in the collection of the

International Quilt Study Center & Museum.

# 2006.043.0157

Four Block Quilt # 1 from IQSC

From the James collection. The Jameses thought it was probably an Ohio quilt.

Quilt #2 is from the Ohio Historical Society

Made by Eliza Jane Secrest (1838-1924) of Mt. Zion, Ohio. Estimated family date, about 1858

Quilt #3

I thought these red & green examples were the same quilt. Careful looking reveals the block patterns are similar, but the border leaves are different. This quilt, which I found on Pinterest, has only two eagles in the border at top and bottom. I bet these are all from Ohio. Notice the doves in all three florals.

I'm quite familiar with the eagles as I drew a pattern for one years ago for our Sunflower Pattern Co-operative.

It was based on the 1865 red, white & blue quilt.

Barbara Fritchie Star pieced by Shirlene Wedd, appliqued by Jean Stanclift

and hand quilted by Anne Thomas. 2000, 90" x 90"

Karla Menaugh & I did a couple of Barbara Fritchie star quilts with our friends at the Sunflower Pattern Co-operative.

Karla did the all-pieced version below. You can barely see the inscription we embroidered into the border, but it's a line from John Greenleaf Whittier's Civil War poem Barbara Fritchie.

We still have a few of the pattern packets available in our Etsy Store. Once they are gone (soon!) we are planning to do a digital download but getting all 7 paper pattern sheets into a printable PDF is still confounding us.

See more here:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/514723435/barbara-fritchie-star-reproduction-paper?ref=shop_home_active_2

Read more about the Civil War symbolism in a Barbara Fritchie Star at this post:

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2011/06/26-barbara-frietchie-star.html

A long URL to see the Ohio Historical Society's quilt.

http://catalog.ohiohistory.org/Presto/content/Detail.aspx?q=c2VjcmVzdA==&ctID=N2IxOTczM2EtNmQ5Yy00MDc3LTljYmItZjcwZTI3N2ZlYmNl&rID=MTA3NTA2&qcf=&ph=VHJ1ZQ==&bckToL=VHJ1ZQ==&

↧

Cornelia Calhoun's Quilt

March 18, 2017, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Westering Women Finishes in Red

≪ Previous: A Trio of Eagle Borders

John C. Calhoun's South Carolina home Fort Hill, which is part of Clemson University, has shown several quilts over the years. Calhoun was the major spokesman for secessionists and pro-slavery Southerners in the first half of the 19th century.

John C. Calhoun 1782-1850

He and wife Floride had seven children who survived infancy. I noticed this cut-out chintz applique in a photo, which said it was made by his daughter Martha Cornelia Calhoun.

Cornelia's quilt is often shown on a bed in the master bedroom.

This postcard may be from the 1960s or '70s

Cornelia's sister Anna Calhoun Clemson and her husband founded Clemson University

in Clemson, South Carolina, on family land.

The Fort Hill historic home recently posted pictures of the quilt

on their Facebook page. I brightened them up a little so the details

are visible.

Martha Cornelia, always called Cornelia in her family, was born in Georgetown, Virginia, while her father was Secretary of War under President James Monroe. She was handicapped by deafness and a spinal disorder and used a wheelchair. Her health was always a concern to her family. Cornelia died rather suddenly at the age of 33 in 1857.

Her chintz applique quilt is done in patchwork style

common in the Carolinas before the Civil War.

The all-over quilting design, concentric quarter circles that we might call fans, was quite popular in the South in the last decades of the 19th century and into the 20th. Is it typical of Carolina quilts during Cornelia's lifetime (1824-1857)? Was her chintz applique quilted before her 1857 death or after? Can't say from the photos and, since I see so few Southern pre-war quilts, I probably couldn't say if I saw it in the cloth.

The Charleston Museum's site is a great place to see South Carolina's antebellum quilts. Search for quilt here:

https://www.charlestonmuseum.org/research/collection/

See more about the Calhouns here:
http://www.clemson.edu/about/history/calhoun-clemson/floridebcalhoun.html

↧

Westering Women Finishes in Red

March 22, 2017, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Working For the Fair

≪ Previous: Cornelia Calhoun's Quilt

Joanne at Thread Head is FINISHED quilting her Westering Women sampler.

She used the traditional set with what looks

to be ~~2-1/2"~~ finished sashing (she says 2"----5" border)

and found the perfect red floral for a border.

Martha used a similar border with a different color scheme.

My theory is red is always good.

Click here to see Rod's red, white and blue set in the Way West design:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRhWla1DjxE/?tagged=westeringwomen&hl=en

Next Week: Block 3 of Yankee Diary

↧

Working For the Fair

March 25, 2017, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Yankee Diary Block 3: Double Ties

≪ Previous: Westering Women Finishes in Red

Pennsylvania Women showing a large flag at the

Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts,

1861

Lloyd Ostendorf Collection

National Archives

Below is an unsigned poem that appears to be unique to this particular newspaper about children doing needlework (and keeping rabbits?) for the Sanitary Fair.

Interesting that it appeared a month after the end of the Civil War.

"Working for the Fair" from the Elgin (Illinois) Weekly Gazette, May 24, 1865

There's a hum of merry voices
In the house and in the street---
There are busy consultations
And a rain of little feet;
There are scores of cunning cushions
Of the dear red, white and blue;
There's a host of snowy rabbits
That will xx fly from you
Should you look on these
With the puzzle in your air.
You'll be told that they are waiting
For the Sanitary Fair.

There's a quilt of one-inch pieces,
For a little fairy's bed.
There's a gorgeous worsted afghan,
And a white embroidered spread.
There are dresses for xxx yearlings
With a rank and file of tucks;
There's a bag and on it, swimming
A whole family of ducks.
There are elephants-great moguls---
Lest some knob the xx should wear
They are made to stand behind it
And are waiting for the Fair.

Oh, the little hands are busy
And 'tis time the children learned
That the pleasure of industry
Is a pleasure to be earned.
That to succor those in sorrow,
Was the work of Christ below---
Is the work of his disciples
Be the object friend or foe.
But our sick and wounded soldiers
Should have toil, and love, and care
We will work, and never weary,
For the Sanitary Fair.

See the newspaper here:
http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/newgailbord01/id/7363/rec/204

↧

Yankee Diary Block 3: Double Ties

March 29, 2017, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Disunion Quilt

≪ Previous: Working For the Fair

Yankee Diary Block 3: Double Ties

by Denniele Bohannon

Detail of an album quilt made to celebrate

Mary Fields Fisk's marriage in 1865.

Collection of the Ontario County Historical Society,

Canandaigua.

From Carrie's diary, December 13, 1859.

"The older ladies of the town have formed a society for the relief of the poor and are going to have a course of lectures in Bemis hall under their auspices to raise funds...The young ladies have started a society, too, and we have great fun and fine suppers. We met at Jennie Howell's to organize. We are to meet once in two weeks and are to present each member with an album bed quilt with all our names on when they are married. Susie Daggett says she is never going to be married, but we must make her a quilt just the same."

The Baptist Ladies' Sewing and Social Society held a fair in

Canandaigua near Christmas, 1858.

Susan Elizabeth Daggett

The girls stayed true to their vows. Susie Daggett never married and they made a quilt for those who did, including Jennie and Carrie.

Carrie's "society" of girls growing into young women had many common ties, some double and triple ties. They were members of the same social class. Carrie's Grandfather Beals and Jennie's attorney father were mentioned together as the town's prominent citizens. Several families are remembered in street names today such as Beals and Chapin.

Susie Daggett's father was minister at the

First Congregational Church

The girls attended the Ontario Female Seminary as day students; they were members of the First Congregational Church and they generally lived in elegant houses. Many of their homes survive in Canandaigua's historic district.

Alfred Field house at 104 Gibson Street.

Society members Mary, Louisa and

Lucilla lived here with Carrie's Aunt Ann.

Some members were cousins and double cousins. Sisters Mary, Louisa and Lucilla Fields were Carrie's first cousins. Their mother Ann had married her first cousin so the girls shared much family history. Cousin Mary Fields for whom the quilt at the top of the page was made married Willis Fisk, a teacher at the Canandaigua Academy, the boys' school.

The Double Tie

Quilt historians can account for four quilts made by Carrie's Society. Two quilts in this pattern are in the collection of the Ontario County Historical Society. Jacqueline Atkins, who did much research on the Canandaigua quilts, called them Double Tie quilts in her book Shared Threads. The pattern was quite popular for "album bed quilts," in the 1840s and '50s.

Becky Brown's Double Ties Blocks

The Double Tie

The Double Tie album is the pattern for the month. At six inches (finished size) the design fills in between the applique blocks of various sizes.

You need to make 5 of them by the end of the year.

Barbara Brackman's Double Ties Blocks

You'll make a row of 3 and a row of 2.

Any colors you like.

Rotary Cutting a 6" Finished Block

A - Cut 4 rectangles 2-1/4" x 4". You will trim these after you piece them to fit the corners.

B - Cut 1 square 4-3/4" x 4-3/4". Cut with 2 diagonal cuts to make 4 triangles. You need 4 triangles.

C - Cut 1 square 2-1/4" x 2-1/4".

Piecing the Block

Trim

Double Tie by Denniele

Ink the center if you like.

"Three Rousing Cheers for the Union"

The block is from Mary Fields Fisk's quilt

at the top of the page.

Jared Willson House

211 North Main

Carrie's friend Clara Willson's home still stands in Canandaigua. Below, a detail of the quilt in the Double Tie design that her friends made for her marriage to Augustus G. Coleman. Every block is the same striped print. The women signed the center blocks and included verses, quotes and jokes.

Double Tie quilt for Clara Willson Coleman

Collection of the Ontario County Historical Society, Canandaigua

Clara's future husband Augustus Coleman photographed

the town from atop the courthouse in 1858.

Becky's Blocks 1, 2 & 3

Jacqueline Marx Atkins discussed the Double Ties

from Canandaigua in her book Shared Threads:

Quilting Together Past and Present.

If you want to get ahead of the story you

can read about Susie Daggett's quilt in Shelly Zegart's

Old Maid-New Woman at this site:

http://www.shellyquilts.com/go/resources/read.php?article=old-maid-new-woman

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Disunion Quilt

April 1, 2017, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Resources for Pieced BOM's & Quiltalongs

≪ Previous: Yankee Diary Block 3: Double Ties

Annie Darden in North Carolina left a diary but no quilt.

March 19 [1861]
"I have finished all the squares for my quilt. I think I shall call it a DISUNION QUILT as it will be made different from any I ever saw."

Ann R. Dillard Darden (1812-1883) was about 49 years old in the first year of the Civil War. She and husband Jet R. Darden lived near the community of Buckhorn in Hertford County up on the Virginia border.

The North Carolina project mentioned her quiltmaking in the book North Carolina Quilts. In 1855 she and friends spent several days quilting. "Put my bedquilt in. Tis very tedious to quilt but very pretty."

The diary is in the collection of the North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh.

Here's the finding aid.

NC.http://www.archives.ncdcr.gov/

Here are some online transcriptions:

https://sites.google.com/site/abolitionistwomen/Home/north-carolina-archives/annie-darden-diaries

https://civilianwartime.wordpress.com/category/annie-darden/

All that seems to be left of their home is

the Darden family graveyard near the Buckhorn Baptist Church.

Perhaps Annie was making a play on the term Union Quilt, which seems to have been in use around the time of the Civil War.
See a post on Union Quilts here:
http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-union-quilt-definitions-descriptions.html

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Resources for Pieced BOM's & Quiltalongs

April 5, 2017, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Quilt Honoring Jeff Davis

≪ Previous: Disunion Quilt

Westering Women by Mark Lauer

Mark just finished his sampler, which he pieced and bordered with prints from my Alice's Scrapbag repro collection from a year or two ago.

Nice collaboration, me and Mark (and Alice).

He enjoyed making a sampler of pieced blocks:

"I love the blocks you picked and wonder if you can suggest any resources for finding more similar style blocks. It's a great mix! "

Maureen G.'s Threads of Memory

in Morris Jewels fabrics.

I have ideas. He ordered the patterns for the Threads of Memory BOM we did a few years ago. Those are original star blocks I designed.

Those of you who've been quilting for a while might be able to suggest 225 or so other pieced BOM's and sampler patterns. As far as resources I did a web search for

pieced sampler BOM

pieced sampler quiltalong

Pam Buda's Conestoga Crossing

Fabric designers often offer free sampler patterns

to promote their fabric lines.

Nancy Gere's Generals' Wives

Some of these are several years old but you can still find links to

the free patterns.

It's not too late to catch up with Moda's traditional designers and their

BlockHeads Block of the Week 2017. Do a web search to find participating designers.

I looked at Pinterest boards of sampler quilts like this one:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/280349145528109604/

Some bloggers keep lists with fairly easy to follow links:

http://www.seamstobesew.com/block-of-the-monthweek-events/2017-block-of-the-months-and-quilt-alongs-around-the-web/

Debbie Mumm's Stars of Honor

http://www.debbiemumm.com/Projects/QuiltBlocks/2014/

Many pattern designers sell samplers in traditional colors and blocks.

Lori Smith's Abigail's Sampler

From Lori Smith's From My Heart to Your Hands pattern company.

https://www.frommyhearttoyourhands.com/Qstore/Qstore.cgi?CMD=009&DEPT=1155191200&BACK=A0001A1

UPDATE: Mandy sent this link on a 2017 CW BOM starting soon:
http://www.piecingthepastquilts.com/peace-and-healing-bow-ii

Carol Hopkins's Land of Lincoln

http://www.carolhopkinsdesigns.com/shop/Civil-War-Legacies-Click-on-quilt-title-to-see-full-story/p/244-Land-of-Lincoln-Sampler-sku-244.htm

Layer Cake Sampler Quilt Along

All triangles, all year

I have been doing these pieced block series since 1976 when I started writing for Quilters Newsletter,.

Several of my history-themed samplers have been published as books:

Civil War Sampler with 50 blocks and Facts & Fabrications with 20

are sill available from C&T Publishing.

http://www.ctpub.com/search.php?search_query=brackman

Borderland is out of print.

And....I still have a couple of blogs on line with series for traditional pieced weekly blocks.The patterns are free; you just have to scroll through the posts.

Cookie's Creek's Austen Family Album

The Austen Family Album with history about Jane Austen-- 36 blocks

http://austenfamilyalbumquilt.blogspot.com/2014/04/block-1-bright-star-for-jane-austen.html

Grandmother's Choice, 49 weekly blocks about Women's Rights.

http://grandmotherschoice.blogspot.com/2012/09/1-grandmothers-choice.html

And if that is not enough you can use my greatest resource:

BlockBase, 4,000 pieced patterns in a PC program.

http://electricquilt.com/online-shop/blockbase/

Of course, I wrote it---but I must say it makes it easy to find themes, topics and related blocks. Design your own block-of-the-month.

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Quilt Honoring Jeff Davis

April 8, 2017, 4:00 am

≫ Next: March Finishes for Westering Women

≪ Previous: Resources for Pieced BOM's & Quiltalongs

In 1915 the town of Red Bluff, in northern California, celebrated April 10th as the "Anniversary of Lee's Surrender" the end of the Civil War.

Old soldiers, civic-minded women and school children marked that fiftieth anniversary with parades, lectures on history and patriotic song fests.

An elaborate 1915 veteran's ceremony in Washington, D.C.

The children are releasing doves of peace.

Library of Congress photo.

In Red Bluff:

"Some relics were presented, the most interesting being a Jeff Davis quilt which was captured during Sherman’s march and was given by the captor to Mrs. Jonathan Stark of this city. The quilt, or rather a cover for a quilt, Is in the shape of the Stars and Bars. In every blue field is a circle of stars inside which are sewn letters making the word 'South.' On all the white stripes are letters sewn making the word, 'Jeff D'. It is quite an interesting relic."

Mrs. Stark was probably Sarah Catherine Dudderer Stark, born in Missouri on November 1, 1839,

died in Red Bluff April 7, 1921. We'd probably recognize that quilt if we came across it. The description is quite clear.

Here's the rest of the newspaper story:

Red Bluff California Daily News, Number 135, 10 April 1915

"CELEBRATE THE ANNIVERSARY OF LEE’S SURRENDER
As arranged the old soldiers and the Ladies of the Westlake Circle were present yesterday at the city schools commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the surrender of General Lee. At the Monroe school a delegation of the veterans spoke to the children. About the same time the ladies met at Mrs. B. C. Foster’s and marched in a body to the Lincoln school with their colors carried by Mrs. Hickman and Mrs Smart. The four lower grades were visited first and short talks given by the visitors. After the upper grades assembled in front of the school and gave the flag salute, then preceded by the veterans they marched to the hall. The school band played several selections during the program, the school under the direction of Miss White sang patriotic songs, and several of the visitors spoke. Among these were Messrs Nealey, Smart, Christian, Burnett and Knapp; Mrs. Hickman and Mrs. Milburn. The addresses were well received by the younger generation. Rev. Rufus Keyser closed the program by a strong appeal for peace."

And a little genealogy on the Stark family from FindAGrave

STARK, JONATHAN
Born Indiana Jan. 10, 1826, parents born Indiana, died Red Bluff May 10, 1901 .
(Will August 8, 1888), married Bates Co. Missouri Sept. 23, 1858, Sarah Catherine
Dudderer, born Missouri Nov 1, 1839, died Red Bluff Apr. 7, 1921, daughter of (*)
Dudderer and Leonah Sheckelford, natives of Kentucky.
Civil War vet. Red Bluff 1880 census.
Red Bank farmer 1896. 4 children.

Leanah S. Stark Thompson (1859-1934)

Thomas Dewitt Stark (1861-1944)

Charles E. Stark (1866-1886)

https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=25290597

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March Finishes for Westering Women

April 12, 2017, 4:00 am

≫ Next: The Generals' Wives' Quilt

≪ Previous: Quilt Honoring Jeff Davis

Pink Deenster has finished setting her bright blocks (she also did a low-contrast set.)

She made up her own clever set that alternates blocks on point with blocks on the straight. Basic geometry means the blocks on point will take up more space.

So she added a frame to the blocks on the straight.

Size of block on straight x 1.414 = Size of block on point

12" x 1.414 = 16.968

We'll call it 17"

Size of frame on each side finishes to 2-1/2"

Am I right Dena?

Danice has finished her Way West version

http://homespunhannahblog.blogspot.com/2017/03/westering-women-qal-quilt-top-completed.html

As has Bernice.

Ellen at LittleJewelQuilts used a triple-strip sash and a series of pieced and plain borders to get a larger quilt that is 80 x 91"
http://littlejewelquilts.blogspot.com/2017/03/taaa-daaa.html

The sorely missed Pat Summitt

Let's get those tops finished!

NOW!

↧

The Generals' Wives' Quilt

April 15, 2017, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Block 3 Finishes: Double Ties

≪ Previous: March Finishes for Westering Women

National Quilt,

Collection of the Ohio Historical Society

1888

For decades after the Civil War, the Union Veterans' group The Grand Army of the Republic held annual national "Encampments," huge reunions of Union soldiers. The 22nd Annual Encampment was held in Columbus, Ohio in September, 1888.

Thousands of veterans camped out in tent cities

at these National Reunions.

During the festivities a quilt was raffled to benefit the GAR. Apparently the GAR post in New Carlisle, Ohio organized the quilt by asking women associated with Union Generals to contribute blocks. Or was it made in Columbiana in Salem County?

Julia Dent Grant may have made or sponsored this block dedicated to her late

husband General U. S. Grant

Jessie Benton Fremont and the block dedicated to Gen. John C. Fremont.

Caroline Harrison's husband's block. In 1888

Benjamin Harrison was running a successful

campaign for President.

General Frank Blair's block and his wife

Apoline Alexander Blair in a portrait by

George Caleb Bingham.

Mrs. John C. Black with General Black's block.

In the 20th-century portrait she is holding

a photograph of her late husband.

James B. McPherson was Ohio's highest-ranking Union officer

killed in battle. The block honoring him was made by a Miss

McPherson. He never married, so this may have been a niece.

Organizers also asked state governors to donate a block but only one state block from California

is in the quilt. Who bought it? Who won it?

Stories conflict. Was the quilt sold at the Re-union or sold to California's Governor Robert W. Waterman? The Ohio Historical Society's information says it was donated by descendants of the lucky winner of the 1888 raffle. There is also some indication that more than one quilt was made.

"Thirty-six women sent quilt blocks to New Carlisle, where they were incorporated into the three quilts. They were entered in an Ohio centennial celebration in 1888, where the National won a first premium in the Art Needle...."

↧

Block 3 Finishes: Double Ties

April 19, 2017, 4:00 am

≫ Next: 34 Stars in a Flag

≪ Previous: The Generals' Wives' Quilt

Daisyusanh's finished her 5 versions of Block 3,

the Double Tie. We can see where she's going

with some great period calicoes.

Jeannie at Spiral has a patriotic color scheme in mind.

As does Vrooman's Quilts

(She made an extra.)

You could make a lot more.

They are sort of like popcorn.

5 might not be enough.

Crib quilt, Baltimore, about 1860

DAR Museum & the Quilt Index

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=46-7A-67

Next week Block 4.

↧

34 Stars in a Flag

April 22, 2017, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Yankee Diary Block 4: Right Makes Might

≪ Previous: Block 3 Finishes: Double Ties

Patriotic Quilt

Estimated date 1861 - 1863

This Civil-War-era quilt is hard to appreciate from a photograph but it is certainly notable. Documented by the New Jersey quilt project, it is estimated to have over 7,000 pieces in it and 34 stars.

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4A-7F-720

The quilt of diamonds and hexagons had passed from the maker's family but the owner attributed it to Ivy Purcell of Atlantic City, married to a doctor.

Because the center field has 34 stars the quilt documenters attributed it to the years 1861 - 1863 when the Union flag had 34 stars.

Abraham Lincoln raised the new flag with

34 stars on February 22, 1861 over Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

We are very used to a conventional grid of stars. The official star placement was dictated by an early 20th-century law but during the mid-19th century flag makers were free to use any arrangement. Here are a few creative flags and quilts.

From a sampler

We'll be making a flag for our Yankee Diary quilt so these may provide inspiration

(if not a lot of applique.)

Field from Emma Van Fleet's 1866 flag quilt

Yakima Valley Museum

Field from a flag quilt in the Belfast Historical Society, Maine

Two starry blocks from a sampler in the

Museum of Our National Heritage,

Quilt Index

Another sampler from the Quilt Index

Field from the Abbie Williams Flag Quilt from Canandaigua.

Ontario County Historical Society.

Field from a crib quilt in the Offut Collection.

Jeffrey Evans Antiques

From Stephen Score Antiques

From James Julia Antiques

A variation on the Peterson's Magazine pattern.

Kansas State Historical Society

This 20th-century quiltmaker thought three was

a good number. The flag looks backwards to us.

But that may have been an unfamiliar concept at the time.

↧

Yankee Diary Block 4: Right Makes Might

April 26, 2017, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Civil War Album Style

≪ Previous: 34 Stars in a Flag

Yankee Diary Block 4: Right Makes Might
by Danielle Bohannon.
A 15" finished flag.

From Carrie's diary, February 28, 1860.

"Grandfather asked me to read Abraham Lincoln's speech aloud which he delivered in Cooper Institute, New York, last evening, under the auspices of the Republican Club. He was escorted to the platform by David Dudley Field....The New York Times called him 'a noted political exhorter and Prairie orator.' It was a thrilling talk and must have stirred men's souls."

Mother's cousin Dudley Field II,

prominent New York lawyer,

hosted the Cooper Institute event.

Carrie and Grandfather Beals were undoubtedly proud that Grandmother's nephew David Dudley Field hosted the Presidential candidate in Manhattan. Abigail Field Beals's illustrious nephews also included Stephen Field who became an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and Cyrus Field, famous for laying the Atlantic telegraph cable.

Nominee Abraham Lincoln in the national news magazine

Harper's Weekly.

The Presidential election of 1860 defined American discord. The Democratic party split, nominating two candidates to represent Northern and Southern interests. A new party, the Constitutional Unionists, nominated their own candidate and another new party, the Republicans, nominated Abraham Lincoln whose eloquent speech at the Cooper Institute brought him national attention.

The Cooper Institute Building still stands

at Cooper Square on St Marks Place in the East Village.

Here Lincoln made a speech ending with:

"Let us have faith that right makes might."

Carrie and Grandfather Beals were probably pleased that Lincoln was nominated and elected but Carrie at 18 years old didn't have much to say about Lincoln's campaign through 1860.

Lincoln political meeting in neighboring Geneva

In November while votes were counted and Southern states threatened to secede if Lincoln won she worked on a patchwork project.

A quilt of silk hexagons backed with papers dated 1864

November 21, 1860

"I am trying to make a sofa pillow out of little pieces of silk. Aunt Ann taught me how. You have to cut pieces of paper into octagonal shape and cover them with silk and then sew them together, over and over. They are beautiful, with bright colors when they are done. There was a hop at the hotel last night and some of the girls went and had an elegant time."

I bet Carrie meant hexagonal shape but no one ever gets that word right---be it 1860 or 2017. Hexagon: 6 sides. Octagon: 8 sides.

In 1858 a drygoods store in Canandaigua promised Silks! Silks!

Aunt Ann Beals Field (1805 - 1896),

Mother's sister and another cousin to the famous Field brothers

The Brothers Field by Matthew Brady.

The Field family was a 19th-century New York powerhouse.

Flag from a quilt dated 1853 in the collection of the Smithsonian

Institution, made in South Reading, Massachusetts.

When Lincoln became President the following year "the storm in the air" finally demanded Carrie's attention.

"I read the inaugural address aloud to Grandfather this evening. [Lincoln] dwelt with such pathos upon the duty that all, both North and South, owe to the Union, it does not seem as though there could be war!"

Block 4 by Barbara Brackman

The Flag

My 15" x 15" (finished size) flag is drawn from an applique sampler that featured a flag in each corner.

Sampler by Dorothea Klein Lemley,

Sheboygan, Wisconsin, blocks 1861-1865,

possibly assembled later,

from my book Civil War Women.

I love Dorothea's free-form appliqued stripes. All my friends advised me I could have pieced the stripes faster and more accurately, but that's the point!

Those appliqued stripes are charming. My love for charm, however, did not extend to appliquéing 13 stars in the blue field like Dorothea did, so I stitched one large star to a polka dot ground.

See more ideas for starry fields in last Saturday's post.
http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2017/04/34-stars-in-flag.html

Becky Brown's flag with appliqued stripes is nicely symmetrical.

The measurements are different from mine.

You need a pieced variable star finishing to 6" and some wiggly applique stripes.

See below.

Cutting a 15" Flag

For the flag cut a background square 15-1/2" x 15-1/2"

A - See the template below for the star that finishes to 4-1/4" inches. Add seams. You can piece or applique it.

B - For applique: Cut a square 5-1/2" x 5-1/2" Applique the star to the field. Turn the edges under and applique the field after you've sewn down the stripes.

C - Cut 2 red strips 1-3/4" x 10-3/4". (Note: I cut the top stripe a little wider.) Turn the edges under and applique.

D - Cut 3 red strips 1-3/4" x 15-1/2" . Turn the edges under and applique.

To Print:

Create a word file or a new empty JPG file.
Click on the image above.
Right click on it and save it to your file.
Print that file. Check to be sure the box line is 5".
Add seam allowances when you cut the fabric.

Becky's design wall with the top half of the finished quilt,

Blocks 1 to 4.

Denniele's

Trying to keep all those Bealses and Fields straight is a puzzle made easier to solve by Nancy T. Hayden's book The Complete Guide to Village Life in America. Nancy is apparently as crazy about Carrie's world as I am. Her book contains a walking tour of Carrie's neighborhood, portraits & short biographies of everybody mentioned in the diary.

Buy it at the Ontario County Museum:

http://www.ochs.org/bookstore-upstate-ny/

Instructions for Becky's Flag

The 6" Finished Star

A - Cut 4 squares 2".

B - Cut 1 square 4-1/4". Cut into 4 triangles with 2 diagonal cuts.

You need 4 triangles.

C - Cut 4 squares 2-3/8", Cut each into 2 triangles with a diagonal cut.

You need 8 triangles.

D - Cut 1 square 3-1/2".

The Stripe

Above is a JPG of the top half of the flag which

should print out 6" x 9". Use it for your appliqued

stripe and add seams.

↧

Civil War Album Style

April 29, 2017, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Label for Westering Women

≪ Previous: Yankee Diary Block 4: Right Makes Might

1861, Esther Griffin for her daughter Mary

It's time to think about next year's Block of the Month with a Civil War theme. I think it should be pieced as I wanted the piecers to have their year without the A word. So my first thought was:

Pieced blocks from album samplers dated between 1855 and 1865.

1862, From the collection of the American Museum in Britain

That sounds like a good idea but it wasn't. I had to recalculate.

1863 John W. Hinton,

North Carolina Project & the Quilt Index

There are, surprisingly, very few pieced blocks from samplers dated 1855-1865. I began by looking at my files of quilts dated 1860-1865.

1864. For Robert W. Wilson

Above the pieced blocks---a checkerboard, a basket & a Cleveland tulip variation---and the last two have applique.

Quilters apparently did not contribute many pieced blocks to album/samplers dated 1855-1865.
This in itself is a style discovery.

By the late 1850s album samplers were composed primarily of applique blocks.

1864 from Rahway, New Jersey & Laura Fisher's shop.

And even those that had quite a few pieced blocks showed little variety in the pieced blocks: album blocks like chimney sweeps, stars and baskets, It would be a dull year.

I'll think of some other source for pieced blocks for 2018. And we'll do applique in 2019. At least now I know it would be historically accurate.

See more about applique samplers here:
http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2013/06/appliqued-sampler-typical-civil-war.html

Quite surprising how little appeal pieced blocks had for Civil-War-era stitchers making album quilts

Two sisters sewing, a stereoscopic photo from 1865

by the London Stereoscopic Company.

See their site here:

http://www.londonstereo.com/

1860 ad from Harper's Weekly

↧