Threads of Memory 11: St. Charles Star for Louisa Alexander

November 29, 2014, 4:00 am

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#11 St. Charles Star for Louisa Alexander

by Jean Stanclift

In the fall of 1863, as Union troops and Confederate sympathizers skirmished in the countryside near St. Louis, a woman sent a letter to her husband who had escaped from slavery and run away to the city.

St. Louis in 1859

There Archer Alexander found shelter from people who also offered to donate money to buy his wife out of slavery. In reply to that welcome news Louisa Alexander dictated a response:

MY DEAR HUSBAND,--I received your letter yesterday, and lost no time in asking Mr. Jim if he would sell me, and what he would take for me. He flew at me, and said I would never get free only at the point of the Baynot, and there was no use in my ever speaking to him any more about it. I don't see how I can ever get away except you get soldiers to take me from the house, as he is watching me night and day. If I can get away I will, but the people here are all afraid to take me away. He is always abusing Lincoln, and calls him a old Rascoll. He is the greatest rebel under heaven. It is a sin to have him loose. He says if he had hold of Lincoln he would chop him up into mincemeat. I had good courage all along until now, but now I am almost heart-broken. Answer this letter as soon as possible. I am your affectionate wife, LOUISA ALEXANDER

Louisa lived near a settlement called Naylor's Store in St. Charles County where "Mr. Jim" Hollman owned her and her family. Naylor's Store is now a ghost town, but was located 20 miles north of the city of St. Charles, according to an 1855 reference.

St. Louis is the larger arrow on the right; St. Charles city the smaller arrow,

and Naylor's Store is north on the flood plains about half way

between the Missouri River (diagonal green line)

and the Mississippi River that curves around St. Charles County

and south to St. Louis.

Missouri, first settled by the Illiniwek tribes, then by the French and in the 19^thcentury by Southern immigrants, was a slave state that never joined the Confederacy.

"Old Frenchtown" in St. Louis by the Mississippi River

St. Louis was its Union heart, home to Federal troops and recent German settlers opposed to slavery. St. CharlesCountywas one of the many rural areas where Southern sympathies reigned.

Friedrich Paul Wilhelm's watercolor

of a boat towed by slaves on the Missouri

River across from St. Charles, ca. 1825

Louisa and Archer had enjoyed a relatively stable married life for an enslaved couple, living together for thirty years and raising ten children. After their marriage, Archer's owners sold him to Louisa's master rather than take him out of the state.

Black Union troops

By the time Louisa sent her letter, only 13-year-old Nellie lived with her. Three of their girls had escaped to St. Louis and a son was fighting in the Union Army. Archer had disappeared six months earlier.

Slave holder Jim Hollman and his neighbors were characterized as "Haystack Secessionists," men who helped the Southern cause in small ways by burning bridges and blocking roads to endanger Federal patrols. Archer heard of a planned attack on a wooden bridge and alerted Union sympathizing neighbors.

Archer Alexander in later life

Knowing he'd be punished, he made his way across the Missouri River to St. Louis, where he was fortunate to meet William Greenleaf Eliot, a Unitarian minister with abolitionist sympathies. Eliot hired him and made the offer to buy Louisa.

William Greenleaf Eliot, about 1850,

from the collection of the Missouri History Museum

But "the greatest Rebel under heaven" refused to negotiate, as Louisa dictated in the letter that one of her German-born neighbors carried to St. Louis. Archer, the Eliots and the German farmers formed other plans. The Eliots offered to hide Louisa and Nellie. A farmer agreed to carry them in his oxcart to the city for payment of $20.

Typical everyday wear for enslaved women during the Civil War

Clad only in day dresses without bonnets or shawls so as not to raise suspicion they were planning to travel, Louisa and Nellie sauntered to the road near their cabin where they'd agreed to meet the farmer. After hiding them under the cornshucks in his wagon, their driver casually walked along, leading his oxen.

A hay wagon could hide quite a bit

Soon one of the Hollmans rode up demanding to know if he'd seen a woman and girl. The farmer honestly confessed, "Yes, I saw them at the crossing, as I came along, standing, and looking scared-like, as if they were waiting for somebody; but I have not seen them since." The italic emphasis is in William Eliot's published account of the escape. He added, "Literal truth is sometimes the most ingenious falsehood."

The Eliot home

Collection of Washington University

Louisa enjoyed freedom under the Eliot's roof with her loving husband and several children for only a year. In early 1865, after slavery was finally abolished in Missouri her former master sent word she could return to Naylor's Store to retrieve her things, which Eliot described:

her "bed [bedding] and clothes, and little matters of furniture….We advised her not to go, as they were not worth much, and there might be some risk involved; but she 'honed' for them, and went. Two days after getting there, she was suddenly taken sick and died. The particulars could not be learned, but 'the things' were sent down by the family."

St. Charles Star by Becky Brown

St. Charles Star combines a traditional star with an easy-to-piece curve to create a star atop a circular shape. The block reminds us of St. Charles County along the Mississippi River where Haystack Secessionists, slaves, Federal troops, and antislavery farmers were neighbors during the Civil War.

Cutting a 12" Block

This block is closely related in basic structure to Block 10, Britain's Star. See those instructions here:
http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2014/10/threads-of-memory-10-britains-star-for.html

The curved pieces (D and F) in the St. Charles Star can be pieced or appliquéd. The instructions directly below are for piecing. Scroll down to see instructions for appliqué. *

A – Cut 1 square 4 1/2" x 4 1/2".

B - For the points cut 4 rectangles 5 5/16" x 2 5/8". Cut the rectangles diagonally to make 2 triangles. (Or use template B.) You need 4 triangles and 4 reversed.

C – Cut 4 squares 4 1/2" x 4 1/2" and use template C to cut out the curve.

D - Use template D to cut 4 curved pieces.

E – Use template E to cut 4 shapes with 4 cut out pieces.

F - Use template F to cut 4 curved pieces.

Printing Templates

To print:

Create a word file or a new empty JPG file that is 8-1/2" x 11".
Click on the image above.
Right click on it and save it to your file.
Print that file out 8-1/2" x 11". At the bottom side of piece C the dark sewing line should measure 4" . Adjust the printed page size if necessary.

Sewing

*Alternate appliqué instructions:

Jean Stanclift who made the block at the top of the page loves to appliqué, so she machine-appliquéd pieces D & F onto backgrounds. She cut 4 squares 4 1/2" x 4 1/2" for the corner square backgrounds (C/D). See a template for the triangles E & F in Block 10, last month's pattern for Britain's Star.

Block 10 Britain's Star

What We Can Learn About the Underground Railroad from Louisa Alexander's Story

Louisa's letter is a rare example of an enslaved woman's words. She probably was unable to write, but she dictated her letter. Her German-born neighbors held slavery in such contempt they were willing to serve as an informal and illegal post office.

We often think of illiterate people as deprived of any written communication (a possible reason for all the stories about secret visual codes) but we should realize many social systems assisted people who could not write or read. Friendship often meant helping with communication. Store keepers and postmasters wrote and read letters for a fee. Scribe-written notes about the Underground Railroad might have been far more numerous than we realize. Most correspondents must have obeyed the advice: "Burn this letter."

Read William Greenleaf Eliot's account of the Alexanders' escapes in his book The Story of Archer Alexander: From Slavery to Freedom (Boston: Cupples, Upham and Company, 1885). The book, which includes Louisa's letter, is available online at the website "Documenting the American South" sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Click on this link:
http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/eliot/summary.html

Read more about the Alexanders and the Eliots here at this post:
http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2011/10/43-right-hand-of-friendship.html

St. Charles Star by Becky Brown

Becky changed the center here to 4 squares cut 2-1/2"

and fussy cut a fancy stripe.

Make a Quilt a Month

Choose high contrast coloring to evoke the night sky in a 45" wall quilt, Moon and Stars. Sash four of the St. Charles Star blocks with 3" finished strips. Add a 2" finished inner border and a 4" finished outer border.

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Cradle Quilt from Historic New England Collection

December 6, 2014, 4:00 am

≫ Next: The Poem on the Anti-Slavery Cradle Quilt

≪ Previous: Threads of Memory 11: St. Charles Star for Louisa Alexander

Abolitionist Crib Quilt

Collection of Historic New England

This small star quilt is in the exhibit telling the story of the American Civil War now at the Shelburne Museum. Above, the framed quilt is shown at the New York venue of Homefront & Battlefield: Quilts & Context in the Civil War.

Gift of Mrs. Edward M. Harris.

Accession number: 1923.597

Sixty-three small stars make up the quilt

which is 36" wide, making each star

block about 5" square.

In the center block is inked a poem:

Mother! when around your child

You clasp your arms in love,

And when with grateful joy you raise

Your eyes to God above,

Think of the negro mother, when

Her child is torn away,

Sold for a little slave, — oh then

For the poor mother pray!

Click on the link to see more at Historic New England:

http://www.historicnewengland.org/collections-archives-exhibitions/collections-access/collection-object/capobject?gusn=GUSN-10459&searchterm=quilt

Thirty years ago quilt historian Cuesta Benberry called our attention to this piece of history in the collection of what was then called Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA). She was interested in quilts having to do with slavery and abolition but there was so little reliable information available in 1981 she was thrilled to find this well-documented example.

(Cuesta Benberry A Quilt Research Surprise." Quilters Newsletter Magazine, July/August 1981, pp 34-35.)

I saw snapshots of the quilt's details and in 1996 Terry Thompson and I made a copy. We were just finding reproduction prints available and thought this would be a good project to use our small stash of early-to-mid-19th-century repros. We had no idea how many blocks it had and how the edges were finished out...

so we used our own taste and our largest chintzes (not very large)

to add two borders.

I inked the poem.

Since then several researchers have done work on the quilt. One important find was an article in the antislavery newspaper The Liberator describing articles for sale at the Boston Antislavery Fair held December 22, 1836.

“The Ladies’ Fair” from The Liberator, January 2, 1837

A cradle-quilt was made of patchwork in small stars; and on the central star was written with indelible ink:
‘Mother! When around your child..."

See a transcription of that article here:
http://hsp.org/sites/default/files/legacy_files/migrated/theliberator.pdf

In Historic New England magazine(Spring, 2012) Nancy Carlisle, Senior Curator of Collections, wrote about the quilt in an article "Comfort for a Cause," giving some background as to how the quilt came to be in the organization's collections.

Francis Jackson (1789-1861)

Photo from the Boston Public Library collection.

They believe that Francis Jackson, president of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society bought the quilt at that 1836 fair. It was passed through his daughter Eliza Francis Jackson Eddy to her daughter, the donor, Mrs. Edward M. Harris (Amy Eddy Harris).

In the catalog for Homefront & Battlefield the authors add the information that Jackson bought the quilt for his daughter who'd recently married and that the quilt is attributed to well-known Massachusetts abolitionist Lydia Maria Child. In a January, 1837 letter to a friend Child wrote, "You have doubtless learned the success of our Fair . . . My cradle-quilt sold for $5." (Letter is in the collection of Brown University.)

Lydia Maria Francis Child (1802-1880)

She was about 34 at the time of the 1836 fair.

More evidence that Lydia Maria Child made the quilt in question:

Throughout her papers she mentions doing needlework for the cause. Martin H. Blatt, ‎David R. Roediger in their 1999 book The Meaning of Slavery in the North write that Child "noted many times that she was 'stitching for the Fair every spare moment.'"

I've found two other documents from Child discussing star crib quilts.

In the 1861 letter above she writes that despite her "irrepressible anxiety about public affairs" during the first summer of the Civil War:

"I made, and quilted on my lap, the prettiest little crib-quilt you ever saw. The outside had ninety-nine little pink stars of French calico, on a white ground, with a rose-wreath trimming all round for a border; and the lining was a very delicate rose-colored French brilliant. It took one month of industrious sewing to complete it. I sent it to my dear friend, Mrs. S., in honor of her first grand-daughter. It was really a relief to my mind to be doing something for an innocent little baby in these dreadful times."

This letter was published in an 1883 collection of her letters, printed after her death. Read it here:
https://archive.org/stream/lettersoflydiama5855chil#page/156/mode/2up/search/quilt

The second reference is in an 1864 list of her accomplishments in which she mentions one quilt:

"Made a starred crib quilt, and quilted it; one fortnights work."

Part of Child's long list

The list has been published in Gerda Lerner's The Female Experience: An American Documentary.

Child seems to have returned to the pattern several times to make crib or cradle quilts.

The poem has been attributed to Child too, but there is doubt about this. More posts on this quilt in the next few weeks.

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The Poem on the Anti-Slavery Cradle Quilt

December 13, 2014, 4:00 am

≫ Next: The Cradle-Quilt's Journey

≪ Previous: Cradle Quilt from Historic New England Collection

The cradle quilt attributed to Lydia Maria Child is on the cover of

Mary Babson Fuhrer's recent book A Crisis of Community,

a good image for a study of a New England town.

Read a post about this antislavery quilt from the collection

of Historic New England here:

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2014/12/cradle-quilt-from-historic-new-england.html

And an article about the quilt by Historic New England's Curator Nancy Carlisle here:

http://digital.turn-page.com/i/63094/4

Lydia Maria Francis Child

1802–1880

Child is remembered as an anti-slavery activist, but she first achieved fame in the 1820s at the age of 22 with a novel Hobomok, A Tale of Early Times, remarkable in being an early historical novel, one written by a woman and one told from a woman's point of view.

Hobomok was published anonymously in 1824,

"By an American."

She supported herself and her husband author David Lee Child with her literary successes, including childrens' books with moral themes, womens' advice books, political columns for newspapers and editing a childrens' periodical.

The Juvenile Miscellany, 1832, edited

by Mrs. D.L. Child

As antislavery activists in Massachusetts became more radical, Child did too. Her 1833 essay An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans was one of the books that influenced the growing antislavery movement. But it also ruined Child's literary career. Her books were boycotted and she lost her editorial job. She continued to edit radical books, among them the 1834 gift book The Oasis, a miscellany of stories and poems with an antislavery theme.

The Oasis contained a poem called Remember the Slave. It's first two verses are inked onto the cradle quilt made two years later, which is now in the collection of Historic New England.

REMEMBER THE SLAVE.

Mother! when around your child

You clasp your arms in love, 
And when with grateful joy you raise 

Your eyes to God above, —

Think of the negro mother, when

Her child is torn away, 
Sold for a little slave, — oh then 

For the poor mother pray!

The table of contents (a portion here from an edition on Google Books) indicates that

Mrs. Follen wrote "Remember the Slave". Lydia Maria Child ("Editor") wrote "Malem-Boo" and the editor's husband David Lee Child wrote "Henry Diaz."

But over time the poem was reprinted with credit to the editor rather than to Mrs. Follen,

as in this 1837 reprint in Thomas Price's compilation

Notices of the Present State of Slavery where the poem

is published as "By Mrs. Child."

Who was Mrs. Follen?

Eliza Lee Cabot Follen

(1787-1860)

She was a good deal like Mrs. Child, a little bit older and much wealthier (one of the Boston Cabots,) She married poet Charles Follen, a German immigrant forced to leave Hesse-Darmstadt for his radical ideas. He continued to act upon them in the United States where he and Eliza were outspoken in their antislavery beliefs.

Like Lydia Child, Eliza Follen published essays, compilations

and books for children...

and anti-slavery poetry.

Twenty years after the 1836 Fair, Charlotte Forten wrote about meeting Mrs. Follen at the annual anti-slavery fair. On Christmas Day, 1856:

"Spent the day very delightfully at the Fair.—Saw many beautiful things and many interesting people. Had the good fortune to be made known to three of the noblest and best of women;--Mesdames Chapman, Follen, and Child; who were very kind and pleasant to me. [Charlotte was a free black so could not count on Bostonians being kind and pleasant to her.]

...Mrs. Follen has a real motherly kindness of manner. She is a lovely looking silver haired old lady."

See the full text of Mrs. Follen's "Remember the Slave," here:

http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/23459/

See The Oasis online at Google Books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=mLl3Yq4xROcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=lydia+maria+child+oasis&hl=en&sa=X&ei=APQqVKOOGJKuggSF1wI&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=lydia%20maria%20child%20oasis&f=false

Read more about Lydia Maria Child here:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/lydia-maria-child

And view Eliza Follen's letters here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/99902797@N03/sets/72157636903883783/

Click on the link to see more about the cradle quilt at Historic New England:

http://www.historicnewengland.org/collections-archives-exhibitions/collections-access/collection-object/capobject?gusn=GUSN-10459&searchterm=quilt

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The Cradle-Quilt's Journey

December 20, 2014, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Threads of Memory 12: Rochester Star for Amy Post & Harriet Jacobs

≪ Previous: The Poem on the Anti-Slavery Cradle Quilt

Cradle Quilt

Historic New England

Click on the link to see more:

http://www.historicnewengland.org/collections-archives-exhibitions/collections-access/collection-object/capobject?gusn=GUSN-10459&searchterm=quilt

I've been writing posts about the Boston crib quilt in the collection of Historic New England. I've discussed the likely source of the quilt and of the poem. There's another story in what happened to it after the December, 1836, Antislavery Fair.

The cradle quilt on display

Francis Jackson (1789-1861)

Photo from the Boston Public Library

The quilt was purchased at the bazaar by Francis Jackson for $5 (over $100 in today's dollars.) Jackson was a wealthy real estate developer and politician who volunteered as treasurer for Boston Vigilance Committee.

Number 31 Hollis Street, Boston.

Jackson lived here in the last decades

of his life. He died just before the Civil War.

His daughter Eliza Francis Jackson (1816-1881) had married Charles Danforth Meriam in November, 1836. The curators at Historic New England record that Jackson bought the crib quilt with its abolitionist message as a gift for the bride. She'd surely be needing it.

Eliza and Charles had three children, the eldest named Francis Jackson Meriam for his grandfather. Charles Meriam died in 1845 leaving Eliza with baby Charles Levi, four-year-old Eliza Frances and Francis Jackson, about eight. We don't know if any of the Meriam children actually slept under the crib quilt with the poem.

It was created to carry on the abolitionist message and it did its job.

Francis Jackson Meriam (1837-1865)

Eliza's son Francis Jackson Meriam's commitment to the antislavery cause drove him to Haiti and the Kansas Territory in the mid-fifties.

Massachusetts Street, Lawrence, Kansas

The town was founded by antislavery activists from

Massachusetts.

When he was 22 he arrived at a Virginia farmhouse near Harper's Ferry, where he'd heard that John Brown and several others were plotting to begin a slave uprising by attacking the federal arsenal there.

Portrait from R.J. Hinton's 1894 book John Brown and His Men.

The plotters had accepted Meriam's $600 inheritance as a donation and asked him to buy ammunition in Baltimore, where he'd almost been arrested.

The Booth Kennedy Farm was headquarters for the conspirators in 1859.

Brown and his men left Meriam at the farm to guard the ammunition while they went to Harper's Ferry to start a war by terrorism. Meriam's fighting skills (he had a glass eye) and judgment might have been factors in his staying behind. He has been recalled as erratic and emotional. The decision saved his life.

Meriam was one of the few of Brown's men to escape.

After Brown and the raid's survivors were arrested, Meriam fled the farm, made his way to Canada through Boston and returned after the Civil War began to become a Captain in the 3rd South Carolina Colored Infantry.

The quilt remained in his family. His mother had remarried when he was about 11. With husband James Eddy she had four more children. The youngest Amy was about five when her brother's name made newspaper headlines in 1859.

Amy Eddy (1854-1938) inherited the crib quilt and in 1923 as Mrs. Edward M. Harris she donated it to a historic house that became part of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, later Historic New England.

Read a first person account of the raid on Harper's Ferry by one of co-conspirators, Richard J. Hinton.
John Brown and his Men, 1894

http://books.google.com/books?id=A3xqoeRmh_sC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Over on the left do a search for Merriam (with 2 r's) to read specifically about Francis Jackson Meriam.

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Threads of Memory 12: Rochester Star for Amy Post & Harriet Jacobs

December 27, 2014, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Stars in a Time Warp: 2015 QuiltAlong

≪ Previous: The Cradle-Quilt's Journey

Rochester Star by Jean Stanclift

This is the last block in the 2014 Threads of Memory BOM

In 1849 in Rochester, New York, two women spent many hours in intense conversation. One in her forties, the other in her thirties, the women began their talks with little in common.

Amy Post (1802-1897) in later life

Amy Kirby Post was a white New Yorker, born a Quaker, the wife of a prosperous druggist and mother and stepmother to a flourishing family.

Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) in later life

Harriet Jacobs, the younger woman, was born a slave in North Carolina and had rarely enjoyed the luxuries of a family life.

"The old Post residence on Sophia Street---the headquarters

of the Underground Railway" [in Rochester]

Amy Post and her husband took in Harriet as a boarder and kept her as a friend. Despite Amy's conviction that, "The Empire State is a shabby place of refuge for the oppressed," Rochester offered temporary shelter to the fugitive and Amy offered a sympathetic ear.

As the months went by Harriet revealed more of her past, a difficult thing to do as much of her story concerned sexual obsession. When she was about fifteen years old she'd attracted the notice of her master James Norcom who demanded her sexual services.

James Norcom of Edenton, North Carolina

Harriet understood the system of concubinage inherent in slavery and sought the protection of another white lover, Samuel Sawyer, a lawyer with a higher social status. With Sawyer she had two children. Obtaining their freedom became an overriding goal in a life made unbearable by her master's lust and her mistress's jealousy.

Norcum's second wife Mary

Southern Diarist Mary Chesnut described the system:

"Every lady tells you who is the father of all the Mulatto children in everybody's household, but those in her own, she seems to think drop from the clouds or pretends so to think..."

Even proper Quaker women like Amy Post knew Harriet's story of sex in slavery was not unusual. Many enslaved women were driven to escape by an owner's grasping hands. Harriet's tale was remarkable because once free of Norcom's desires she did not go far.

Sawyer tricked Norcom into selling him his children Joseph and Louisa. He sent them to live with Harriet's free grandmother. Refusing to leave her children, Harriet hid in a crawl space over their porch for years. Norcom never gave up looking for her, posting an advertisement describing her carefully:

"She is a light mulatto, 31 years of age, about 5 feet 4 inches high, of a thick and corpulent habit, having on her head a thick covering of black hair that curls, but which can be easily combed straight. She speaks easily and fluently and has an agreeable carriage and address. Being a good seamstress she has been accustomed to dress well, has a variety of very fine clothes made in the prevailing fashion, and will probably appear if abroad tricked out in gay and fashionable finery…."

Harriet asked friends to post letters from northern cities to fool Norcom into believing she had fled to a free state, when in reality she lived in a cramped attic close by. Sawyer, elected to Congress and newly married, arranged to have the children travel north.

Harriet herself ran first to Philadelphia and New York City and then north to Rochester where a brother lived. Rochester in 1849 was an exciting place, a thriving mill town on the falls of the Genesee River, a mecca for antislavery activists where Frederick Douglass, the most famous of fugitive slaves, published his North Star newspaper. The city located near the Erie Canal, Lake Ontario and the Canadian border was an important way station on the Underground Railroad.

Harriet spent her months in Rochester managing an antislavery reading room above the North Star offices where a group of women met every Thursday to sew items for sale in the library gift shop and at the antislavery fairs.

Reformers like Amy heard many stories from fugitive slaves and abused women but she recalled that Harriet's tale was painful to hear and exceptionally painful to tell. "Even in talking with me, she wept so much, and seemed to suffer such mental agony, that I felt her story was too sacred to be drawn from her by inquisitive questions, and I left her free to tell as much, or as little, as she chose."

As the story unfolded Amy encouraged Harriet to write it down and publish it, "but the weeping woman demurred: 'You know a woman can whisper her cruel wrongs in the ear of a dear friend much easier than she can record them for the world to read.'"

Federal laws tightened and runaways in Rochester realized the danger. Her brother went west to California and Harriet returned to the larger city of New York where she hoped to disappear. Without Amy to hear her, she spent her evenings writing out the story.

After the malevolent Doctor died in 1850 his family accepted a friend's payment for her freedom. Harriet gained the confidence to send her autobiographical sketches to the editor of the New York Tribune. Readers were shocked by her frank accounts of sex and slavery.

With Amy's encouragement she collected the essays into a book called Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl, published just before the Civil War under the pen name Linda Brent. In a preface, editor Lydia Maria Child emphasized that the book was true despite its far-fetched plot. Amy added a short account of how she first heard Harriet's stories, also testifying about the book's accuracy. But few readers believed the book was anything more than fiction.

Harriet's younger child, Louisa Matilda Jacobs (1833-1913)

During the Civil War Harriet and her daughter Louisa assisted in relief efforts for freed slaves and both spent the rest of their lives in frustrating efforts to obtain civil rights. Most of Harriet's friends and acquaintances in her post-War homes of Washington and Cambridge, Massachusetts, were unaware of her connection to "Linda Brent's" scandalous book, which gradually came to be forgotten until recent years.

Rochester Star by Becky Brown

Rochester Star is a new angle on an old star design. The block honors the friendship between two remarkable women and the town where their paths crossed.

Cutting a 12" Block

Printing Templates

To print:

Create a word file or a new empty JPG file that is 8-1/2" x 11".
Click on the image above.
Right click on it and save it to your file.
Print that file out 8-1/2" x 11". The top side of piece B should measure 4" on the dark sewing line. Adjust the printed page size if necessary.

A – Use template A to cut 4 four-sided shapes for the corners.

B - Cut 1 dark square 6 1/4" x 6 1/4". Cut into 4 triangles with 2 cuts.

You need 4 larger triangles.

C - Cut 4 light rectangles 4 5/8" x 3 1/4". Use template C to cut the rectangles diagonally to make 4 triangles and 4 reversed.

D - Cut 1 medium square 4 3/4" x 4 3/4". Cut into 4 triangles with 2 cuts.

You need 4 smaller triangles.

E – Cut 1 medium dark square 4" x 4".

Sewing

What We Can Learn About the Underground Railroad from Amy Post's & Harriet Jacob's Story

Amy's persistence in encouraging Harriet to publish her story may seem insensitive but she and other reformers realized that the best way to sway public opinion about slavery's injustice was to reveal how cruelly women suffered. Once the mid-19th-century concept of women's sensibility was extended to enslaved women, religious Northerners began to seriously question the "monstrous system." Many stories and pictures focused upon the common theme of women sold as concubines.

Make a Quilt a Month

Set nine blocks in the Rochester Star pattern side by side, but focus the shading on a central star to create a 48" wall quilt. You'll need 2 lights, (yellow and sky blue here), 2 mediums (ochre and blue) and 2 darks (rust and navy). Add a 2" inch finished navy inner border and a 4" finished outer border.

This is the last block in the 2014 Threads of Memory. We'll be discussing sets next month and looking at everyone's finished tops and quilts.

Joseph Jacobs, Harriet's son with Samuel Sawyer, was born in 1829.

Read Harriet Jacobs's story in Jean Fagan Yellin's book Harriet Jacobs: A Life.

Harriet is above the x in the cover photo.

Harriet Jacobs and Amy Post were remarkably prolific writers. Through fortunate circumstances as a child in slavery, Harriet was taught to read. Through even more fortunate circumstances many of her letters have survived. Pace University is sponsoring The Harriet Jacobs Papers Project to publish those letters in a two-volume set. You can read about the project and see a photograph of Harriett by clicking on this link: http://webpage.pace.edu/kculkin/

Almost 2,000 of the Post family letters (including 33 of Harriet's letters to Amy) are in the collection of the University of Rochester. They are not available on line but you can read much more about the Post family at the University web site by clicking on the following link: http://www.library.rochester.edu/index.cfm?page=1096

You can read Harriet Jacobs' book online at the web page of the New York Public Library's Schomburg Collection. Once you arrive at the home page of their African-American Women Writers archive, enter the site by hitting the area marked "click," and then where you see "Browse By Title" click on "Select Menu." When the list appears scan down to the title Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and click. You can see Amy Post's part of the book by clicking on the Appendix. Begin the process by clicking on this link: http://digital.nypl.org/schomburg/writers_aa19/

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Stars in a Time Warp: 2015 QuiltAlong

January 3, 2015, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Stars in a Time Warp: The Pattern

≪ Previous: Threads of Memory 12: Rochester Star for Amy Post & Harriet Jacobs

For 2015 I'm planning a QuiltAlong here on the Civil War Quilts blog. Every Wednesday I'll post a piece in the Stars in a Time Warp series----but it won't be a pattern for a different design each week, like we have been doing the past few years.

We'll be doing the same 6" sawtooth star every week.

Vintage Variable Star or Sawtooth Star, about 1850-1880

What will change weekly is the fabric. Each post will be a lesson on reproduction fabrics in a particular style or color.

Vintage Sawtooth Star about 1870-1890.

You'll wind up with many 6" stars that you can mix or match into time warp quilts.

My stars in Turkey red repro fabrics

The fabric lessons will be based on my books America's Printed Fabrics 1770-1890 and Making History: Quilts and Fabric from 1890-1970.

This month we'll begin in the 1840-1865 period---the Civil War era--- with tips for finding authentic reproduction prints in Turkey red and Prussian blue style.

My books aren't necessary to participate but they will add to your understanding of the various fabrics. We'll start with America's Printed Fabrics, Chapter 3: The Fabric of Young America (1840-1865)

Vintage quilt with chintz alternate blocks

We'll go forward in time stitching sawtooth stars from the repro prints in your stash or on your shopping list. Because it's a time warp we can shift backwards too, exploring the days of chintz and toile.

Vintage quilt with chintz alternate blocks

You can make one star or more each week. By the end of the series we'll have a shower of stars to set into a quilt from mini to king-sized. I'll also give you plenty of traditional set ideas (and many new interpretations from some of the best quilters working with reproduction prints today.)

Reproduction block by Becky Brown

Becky will add her distinctive eye to the weekly posts.

Look for the first post next Wednesday January 7th. I'll still do Saturday posts as long as I continue to find information about Civil War Quilts and reproductions, so if you subscribe by email you'll get two notifications every week.

Vintage block about 1880-1910

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Stars in a Time Warp: The Pattern

January 7, 2015, 4:00 am

≫ Next: A Slave-Made Quilt?

≪ Previous: Stars in a Time Warp: 2015 QuiltAlong

Vintage star about 1820-1850

Every Wednesday for much of 2015 I'll be posting Stars in a Time Warp QuiltAlong here at Civil War Quilts. The blocks stay the same each week. What changes is the type of reproduction fabric we'll use.

Star about 1830-1860

Star about 1870-1900

The pattern we'll use is #2138d in my BlockBase digital program for PC's. Here are rotary cutting instructions for a 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 ~~4".~~ NO that's 3-1/2". Thanks to the Calico Cat for checking the math.

Here's how to piece the block.

Why 6" Blocks?

You can use Moda's 5" Charm squares for any of the patches.
A 6" block is enough to show off some prints but small enough to require a lot of stars for a full-size quilt.

But you can choose another size or you can make star blocks of varying sizes. Me, I'm sticking to 6".

Vintage quilt about 1870-1890

We'll use the star format to learn lessons in fabric

history, antique quilt identification and

SHOPPING.

I'll give you information on what to look for when you're buying traditional prints. Each week you'll see examples of original prints and of good reproduction fabrics (mine and others). It will give you a shopping list and a way to sort your stash.

Vintage quilt about 1870-1890

You might want to start assessing your reproduction print stash now.

(And perhaps your credit card limit.)

Each week I'll also give you ideas for star settings, both vintage and current.

The shopping information will be helpful because to have a good vintage fabric stash you need to learn how to buy prints by the style rather than the name of the fabric line. The quilt fabric market is designed to change frequently. So if you are picking prints by categories like madder stripe or Prussian blue ombre print you will know what you need when it's available. It won't be on the bolt long.

I also think the best way to learn to make reproduction quilts is to study a quilt by copying it. You copy not only the fabric but also the fabric choices made by the original quiltmaker. It's not enough to use antique-looking prints, you need to use them the way they were used in the past.

An 1857 block--3 different background prints.

We don't think like this.

We'll be channeling the thoughts of Civil-War-era

quilters by studying the details in their blocks and quilts.

We'll use our crystal ball to choose fabrics like a 19th-century piecer.

It's not just having the right stripe, it's using the

stripe the way they might have.

The star pattern is seen in earliest pieced quilts. It's been published with many names. Here are four shading variations from BlockBase with some names in print..

2138a Evening Star

2138b Austin

2138c Square and Points

2138d Nameless Star

Sawtooth

Sawtooth Star

People tend to call it Sawtooth Star, Variable Star or Evening Star today.

See a post on variable stars here
http://quilt1812warandpiecing.blogspot.com/2012/07/variable-stars-antique-reproductions.html

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A Slave-Made Quilt?

January 10, 2015, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Stars in a Time Warp 1: Multi-colored Turkey Red Prints

≪ Previous: Stars in a Time Warp: The Pattern

Quilt attributed to a "black family in Texas."

Color and patchwork rival any abstract painting.

John Knotts wanted to know more about this quilt. Was it a slave-made quilt?

Detail of the center with note on left

He had no provenance other than the story that it came from an African-American family in Texas. An index card stitched to the front center said: "This quilt was Mother Ferguson's...."

Slavery ended in 1865 with the end of the Civil War. The primary question, therefore, becomes: Was the quilt made before 1865? If not, there is no sense persuing Ferguson genealogies and local histories to determine if the quilt was made by a person in slavery.

But the answer to that important question of age: Hard to Say.

The blue and white fabrics are probably combination

wool/cotton stripes, twills, checks and chambrays.

Our first job is to analyze clues in the fabric. As the note says: "Even the material was made by hand. The wool was sheered (sic) and from this on down to cloth it was done by hand."
The note seems quite accurate. The various fabrics in the quilt look to be wools spun into yarns, dyed and woven into cloth. The detail shots indicate there are cotton/wool combination fabrics too.

The gray fabric and the white may be

all cotton. The purplish look to be blue and

red wool yarns crossed with white cotton yarn.

The various fabrics may have all been

hand-spun, home-dyed and home-woven, but this kind

of cloth was also factory-made.

There are many names for this common coarse cloth: Linsey-woolsey, linsey, hickory cloth, jeans cloth, Kentucky cloth. A piece of rough wool or wool/combination cloth is very difficult to date. People wore it in 1650, in 1850 and into the early 20th century in rural places like Texas.

Man born into slavery photographed in the 1930s

by the WPA interview project. His well-patched coat

and coarse shirt have served him well for many years (and he

may be the second or third owner.)

Photo from the Library of Congress.

The coarse wools are quite durable. Cloth woven in 1830 might still be viable in 1890. So some or all of this cloth could date to "pre-Civil-War." But is the quilt that old?

The other side shows the quilting

There are other clues to date in a pieced and quilted item. The quilting, for example.

The quilting design is a good clue to date---although not a smoking gun. It's one style clue in a group of clues. This fan quilting pattern (concentric arcs) is very typical of Southern quilts after 1870 or so. (It's not an excellent clue because there are a few exceptions to this rule.)

The style of the patchwork is also a fairly good clue. One can call this a make-do quilt, patchwork made of fabric pieces used in their entirety, not swatches cut for a piecework design.

The blue piece on the left here (perhaps a twill jeans cloth) looks to have been cut for a sleeve or a pants leg. Has the maker taken apart a worn pair of britches and layered them into the top

Or is it the top? Note that the paper index card is sewn on the busy side of the bedcover ----is this side the back?

To confuse the issue there is another cloth label,

now illegible,

stitched to the other side of the quilt.

Could this almost whole-cloth side

have been intended as the front

and the cobbled-together, make-do side

as the back?

That question is probably irrelevant to the age of the quilt

but that make-do look is something we see far more of

at the end of the 19th century and into the 20th.

Embroidered wool quilt about 1800

Earlier patchwork quilts of wool tend to be more organized

and cut to patterns

Wool quilt, early 19th century.

Collection of the American Folk Art Museum

Quilts and comforters pieced of random wool shapes tend to date towards

1880 or later as in this one dated 1901. The fashion for crazy

quilts seems to have freed quiltmakers to use swatches as

they found them rather than trimming to pattern.

Quilt by Susanah Allen Hunter, Alabama,

collection of the Henry Ford Museum

Hunter's quilt is attributed to the 1930s.

It might best be described as a make-do quilt

of clothing scraps.

This 20th-century make-do quilt from Jonathan Holstein's collection

shows the same kind of long pieces, perhaps left over

from home sewing pants or factory-cutaways

left from machine cutting. One name is "Britches Quilt."

Based on the style clues in quilting and patchwork I would conclude that the quilt in question is probably late 19th-century, made after the Civil War, and therefore technically not a "Slave-Made Quilt."

Linsey quilts from Merikay Waldvogel's collection

My Tennessee friend Merikay Waldvogel, an expert in linsey quilts made of these coarse wools, characterizes them as generally Southern in origin. Many were made after the Civil War to recycle old clothing that was too durable to throw away but too unfashionable and too uncomfortable to wear. They are not exclusively African-American but were made by Southerners of various backgrounds.

It's unlikely the Texas quilt was made during slavery, although the fabric might have been hand-made or the kind of factory-produced clothing fabric that slaves wore.

A description of John's quilt:

Late 19th-century linsey make-do quilt by "Mother Ferguson," an African-American Texan, probably using worn clothing in a variety of home-woven wool fabrics in an unusually graphic design, appealing to contemporary tastes.

Contact John if you are interested in the quilt:
dot925sterling@yahoo.com

See more posts on linsey quilts I've written:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2012/09/flea-market-find.html

http://quilt1812warandpiecing.blogspot.com/2012/03/linsey-woolsey-quilts.html

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Stars in a Time Warp 1: Multi-colored Turkey Red Prints

January 14, 2015, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Catherine Fisher's 1862 Quilt

≪ Previous: A Slave-Made Quilt?

Reproduction star by Bettina Havig

in Turkey red and shirting prints

Vintage print: Typical imported Turkey red print

from about 1840-1865.

We'll begin this Time Warp QuiltAlong with stars of Turkey reds. Turkey red is one of the most recognizable cottons in 19th-century quilts. We see it often, either as a solid color or print.

Vintage Turkey red print star.

Note how many different red prints she combined

to make the star.

Our first stars will focus on the multi-color Turkey red print popular before the Civil War years.

My stars

Turkey red repros by Becky Brown, above and below.

Reproduction print from Moda's Collection for a Cause:

Friendship

Vintage print from 1840-1860

The background for Turkey red prints was always red. The sophisticated printer could discharge (bleach out) white and add yellow, blue, green and dark brownish-black figures.

Rubia Tinctorum,

the vegetable dye for madder colors

The dyestuff is madder root, which rather easily produces a brownish-red. Vivid reds were hard to obtain in cotton.

The vintage windowpane check is madder red, a brownish, orangey-red.

Turkey red gets its name from the old Turkish or Ottoman Empire where dyers used processes they'd learned from India to obtain a bright cherry red in cotton. Turkey red came to Western Europe in the 18th century after French and British dyers sent spies east to learn the process.

Turkey red plain in a 19th-century block.

Look for a blueish-red rather than an

orangey-red.

Early European efforts focused on plain reds obtained by dyeing the cotton in the yarn, then weaving it into solids.

Vintage two-color Turkey red print

The simplest Turkey red prints were discharged white figures. In 1810 Daniel Koechlin-Schouch of Mulhouse in Alsace, France, developed techniques to add yellow figures in the discharge process.

Most of the Turkey red prints we see in mid-19th-century

American quilts have some yellow figures, as in these blocks. Adding the

yellow often gave an orange cast to the red.

In the early 19th century, printers developed increasingly complex processes to add blue, green and black figures to the Turkey red background. Mills specialized in Turkey reds. Towns in England, Scotland, France and the German and Swiss states were home to Turkey red workshops and factories,
but the process apparently was not done in the United States until after the Civil War.

The vintage multi-colored Turkey red print is a good clue

to a date of about 1840-1865.

European dyers offered a variety of backgrounds for these multi-colored prints but American quilters

were crazy about the red-ground prints, which became quite the fashion here about 1840.

Vintage print

Reproductions

When looking for Turkey red prints to reproduce a pre-1865 look

keep an eye out for bluish-red backgrounds and

figures in yellow, green, blue, white and dark brownish black.

Reproduction print

Reproduction print from AlaCarte by American Jane.

Sandi Klop designs many American Jane

prints in French Provincial style for Moda. She often

has two or three good Turkey red reproductions in a line---

the right reds with multi-colored figures.

They still print Turkey-red-style prints in France.

Pierre Deux is known for their provincial-style

reds...

lots of which are figures set in a regular diagonal

grid, a foulard design. Because they use modern dyes

the figures are a bit brighter than the 19th-century prints

but the style is good.

Cornucopia from Simply Baltimore by Sue Garman

Sue Garman specializes in red and green quilts.

The red reproductions in her stash always work well.

See her blog here:

http://suegarman.blogspot.com/

Cactus Rose Reproduction Quilt

Pieced, Appliqued by Pam Mayfield and Jean Stanclift,

hand quilted by Ann Thomas. Designed by Barbara Brackman.

For this reproduction quilt we used several red prints sold for clothing rather than quilts. The pattern begins on page 66 of America's Printed Fabrics.

Stars and Squares from Annette Plog's PetiteQuilts on Etsy

https://www.etsy.com/shop/PetiteQuilts

I found this repro block at the Trkingmomoe blog.

She has captured that very scrappy look.

http://trkingmomoe.wordpress.com/

Lori's reproduction of the Beyond the Cherry Trees

applique quilt uses a red paisley I did for Moda a few years ago.

http://humblequilts.blogspot.com/

Vintage star from an 1836 cradle quilt in

the collection of Historic New England.

(Scroll down to see the whole quilt.)

My interpretation of that star. I cut up a French

Provincial dinner napkin.

Moda includes two good Turkey red plain reproductions in the Bella Solids

collection. The lighter shade is Christmas Red (9900-16) and

the darker Country Red (9900-17)

Setting idea for your stack of star blocks:

Set them side-by-side as in the 1836 crib

quilt from Historic New England.

(Sixty-three 6" stars)

Several years ago Terry Thompson and I interpreted that quilt with

an abolitionist poem in the center star

See closeups of the original here:

http://www.historicnewengland.org/collections-archives-exhibitions/collections-access/collection-object/capobject?gusn=GUSN-10459

One More Thing about Turkey Red

Turkey red is colorfast. It doesn't bleed onto other fabrics

or fade with light. But damage is common. One of the biggest problems with

antique prints is the way the dark brown figures

start to rot from the iron in the brown dye process.

Sometimes the brown completely disappears

leaving holes with the batting peeking through. Mills use

different dyes today so don't worry about your reproduction browns tendering

(textile jargon for rotting.)

You can see here how the brown is printed atop

the Turkey red and the yellow is bleached out or

discharged.

That tendering won't happen with today's Turkey red

repros---we use completely different dye processes today.

Turkey red stripe as the star's background in a vintage quilt

I'm going to try to capture the look of old star blocks (mostly by trial and error.)

I need a pinker pink here and a stripe rather than a plaid.

Read more about Turkey red in America's Printed Fabrics, pages 62-67.

And in these blog posts:
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2012/02/turkey-red-friendship.html

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2010/09/more-on-turkey-red.html

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Catherine Fisher's 1862 Quilt

January 17, 2015, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Stars in a Time Warp 2: Prussian Blue

≪ Previous: Stars in a Time Warp 1: Multi-colored Turkey Red Prints

Detail of a new acquisition in the collection of

Boston's Museum of Fine Art

#2013.74

See the whole quilt at their website by clicking here:
http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/pieced-civil-war-quilt-567395

Dealer and collector Gerald Roy found this quilt in New Hampshire. According to the MFA catalog the inscription (barely visible in the quilting above in the center) reads: "Our Father Who Art in Heaven" and "Christian A. Fisher 1862". Catherine Fisher of Muskingham, Ohio, is presumed to have made it for her son when he enlisted in the Ohio Volunteers.

Catherine Krebs (1809-1896) and Caspar Fisher/Fischer (1808-1893) came to the United States from Bavaria in 1837, soon after their marriage. Their eldest child Samuel was born in Pennsylvania in 1839. They soon moved to Adams Township, Muskingum County, Ohio, where eight more children were born. Christian, born in 1843, was 19 the year the quilt was made.

The Fishers attended the Zion Lutheran Church

in Adams Township. This building was finished in 1873.

The Fischers had lost two young children in 1861. Three-year-old John died in September and seven-year-old Casper in October. Fear for her boy must have been foremost in Catherine's mind during the War. Fortunately, Christian survived the Civil War and settled in Plymouth, Indiana, where he died in 1919 at the age of 78.

Christian Fisher's grave in Indiana.

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Stars in a Time Warp 2: Prussian Blue

January 21, 2015, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Becky's Spiky Set for Threads of Memory

≪ Previous: Catherine Fisher's 1862 Quilt

Prussian blue reproduction star by Becky Brown

using prints from Terry Thompson's

Merchant's Wife line of 2013.

Vintage stars about 1840-1865

You might think the unknown quilter had run out of fabric and was forced

to make scrappy stars, but there are two stars almost

alike. She seems to have planned it this way.

Prussian blue prints are one of the distinctive clues to quilt dating. American quilters created a fad for these bright blues from about 1840 to 1865. Prussian Blue is a mineral dye that colors fabric a variety of shades, the most distinctive being a bright royal blue. Unlike indigo, which works most efficiently as a background color, Prussian blue can be the figure in a print as well as the ground.

Vintage Prussian blue stripes

Vintage star about 1840-1865

Prussian blue was especially adaptable to ombre or rainbow shading.

The formula was discovered about 1700 and found quite useful in

paints and dyes.

Vintage star about 1840-1865

Dyers often combined it with madder reds and pinks.

Vintage block about 1840-1865

As did quilters.

Vintage block about 1840-1865

Reproduction Star by Becky Brown

using Terry Thompson's the Merchant's Wife line

The dye's chemistry made it particularly complementary

to a brown called iron buff.

Vintage block about 1840-1865

So it's often seen with shades of this dull brown color.

Vintage block about 1840-1865

Printers could push the dye towards green, producing

a rather flat blue-green that is also distinctive to the mid-19th century.

Prussian blue produced beautiful blues and buffs that

were fashionable for clothing.

Perhaps a wool dress in a Prussian blue and buff

colorway. These wide stripes were the look in

the 1840s and '50s, so the fabric in a quilt is an

excellent clue to a date for about 1840-1865.

Vintage top about 1840-1865

Original inspiration for Terry Thompson's

Merchant's Wife line.

When you see a Prussian Blue reproduction snatch it up.

They are not often done.

The Merchant's Wife

It's difficult to market this type of detailed reproduction.

Most mainstream quilters do not buy it because they

do not understand its history.

Susan Ambrose alternated blocks of Terry's Prussian blue

stripes with her pink postage stamp blocks.

See more here:

http://susanambrosedesigns.blogspot.com/2014/02/summer-sewing.html

Reproduction Star by Becky Brown using The Merchant's Wife

Reproduction star by Barbara D. Schaffer

Barbara used a Prussian blue stripe,

from her repro scrapbag to make this star top, which she showed on her blog.

http://barbaradschaffer.blogspot.com/

There are several shaded or ombre prints in

vivid blue in my Union Blues fabrics coming to

shops in March.

A few of the blues from my Metropolitan Fair

collection of Moda.

Dustin Cecil used them to make this star in the center

of a more complex block.

Reproduction by Bettina Havig, who added triangles

to the center square to get a fussy-cut frame

Pamela Weeks has done some Prussian blue repros.

And here's one from a collection called Prussian Blue.

Nancy Gere in General's Wife

Setting idea for your stack of star blocks:

Mid-19th-century quilt

Sash your stars with a Prussian blue reprint.

Feathered star from about 1840-1860

Collection of the International Quilt Study Center & Museum

Prussian blue sashing is a fabulous repro look.

Quilt dated 1864 from the North Carolina quilt project,

picture from the Quilt Index.

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4B-82-1F0

Prussian blue sashing in a quilt dated 1841

One More Thing About Prussian Blue

The old Prussian blue dye seems more colorfast in prints than in plain. The dye is fast to light, so it doesn't fade. If washed in acid solutions it doesn't bleed. But a strong hot alkali solution, such as laundry soap, breaks down the blue leaving a tan color. Solid blue cottons in nineteenth-century quilts are often streaked or faded. Continued laundering could completely eliminate the blue.

See more photos of mid-19th-century dresses in the dramatic striped style:
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2013/09/outrageous-fashion.html

And more photos of Prussian blues old and new at previous posts:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2009/11/prussian-blue.html

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2013/05/prussian-blue-old-new.html

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-merchants-wife-reproduction-prints.html

Read about Prussian blues in my book America's Printed Fabrics, pages 54-57.

Carol Godreau & Maureen Gregoire with

a reproduction inspired by the quilt below in the

collection of Connecticut's Danbury Museum.

The original masterpiece is now on display in the show Anita Loscalzo has curated at the New England Quilt Museum, called "A Passion for Prussian Blue." See it before it closes on April 4, 2015.

http://www.nequiltmuseum.org/

↧

Becky's Spiky Set for Threads of Memory

January 24, 2015, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Stars in a Time Warp 3: Shirting Prints

≪ Previous: Stars in a Time Warp 2: Prussian Blue

Becky's finished top in line for hand quilting

She says that probably is not going to happen, however. She can piece a lot more tops than she can quilt. The quilt in the frame has been there for 20 months. She sent this photo to show how she photographs her quilts (note rolled up rug.) She hangs over the stair railing to get the whole quilt in a picture and then manipulates the photo into a rectangle with Photoshop (at which she's quite good)

Memory's Crown by Becky Brown, 76" 99"

For her blocks made with my Moda Ladies' Album collection, Becky used a set inspired by the old Rocky Mountain/Crown of Thorns/New York Beauty sashing.

Quilt from the mid-20th century, possibly made from a

Mountain Mist pattern called New York Beauty.

We're giving you a pattern here but must remind you that this is NOT for beginners in sewing or in computer-aided pattern drafting. It's a challenge.

Becky pieced spiky strips 12-1/2" x 4-1/2". When pieced to the blocks they finish to 12" x 4".

Each spike is tapered from 1" on a 4" length.

Threads of History blocks with a Crown of Thorns set#1,

52" x 68"

Becky did a lot of preplanning using Photoshop. Her first idea was to set the 12 blocks on a horizontal grid and sash the blocks with the 12" x 4" finished strips. This is the pattern we are giving here.

(This shot is probably the closest to the correct color of this quilt.)

Plan A: Separate the blocks with these strips and add a finished 4" corner square of a large floral print. Most prints she used are from my Ladies' Album collection last year. Her light plain color in the spikes is Moda's Bella Solid Parchment.

Measurements

Top is 52" x 68".
Blocks finish to 12".
Cornerstones finish to 4". (Cut 20 squares 4-1/2".)
Pieced sashing strips finish to 12" x 4". You need 35.

Here's a paper pieced pattern for the strips.

How to Print

Create a word file or a new empty JPG file that is 8-1/2" x 11".
Click on the image above.
Right click on it and save it to your file.
Print that file out on a sheet of 8-1/2" x 14" paper (legal-size). The template should be 4-1/2" wide x 12-1/2" long.
Adjust the size if necessary to the correct size.

Cutting the fabric.

Becky used a template to cut her fabric

before piecing it to the foundation.

Print this on an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet of paper.

It should make a template 1-3/4" at the base.

You may have to readjust the pattern to fit your printer.

Here she's cut 36 spikes out of a strip of Parchment solid fabric.

Note from Becky: "When piecing this border be mindful of starting and ending the sashing with light or dark fabric.

It will make a difference."

Plan B: Set for 12 sampler blocks with 6 alternate plain blocks.

But she started thinking that she should place the blocks on point. The top would finish to about 68" x 90-1/2"

Piecing all those spikes gave her more time to think. She decided the cornerstones would look good with a pieced diamond star, something you often see in the sashing of those old Crown of Thorns quilts.

4" finished, hand-pieced star

Stitch 17 stars finishing to 4". You are on your own here. Draft an 8-pointed star to finish 4" ---BlockBase or EQ7 will do that for you. Becky hand-pieced them for accuracy.

First idea for star/sunburst

Well, you know Becky. She got another idea and she can sew anything she can think of and
draw in Photoshop. She decided those six plain blocks were just too plain and put an 8-pointed star/sunburst in them.

" I wanted these stars to float in the block so that it wouldn't compete with the other blocks. The placement of fabrics (colors) vary on these 6 blocks so they are all different."

Again, you are on your own. (Do note there are many nice star/sunburst blocks already drafted for you in BlockBase and EQ7).

Detail of a corner to show you how she finished up the border.

And there you are.

Note: No pattern for finished Becky masterpiece. It should remain one of a kind don't you think?

↧

Stars in a Time Warp 3: Shirting Prints

January 28, 2015, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Lincoln Crazy Quilt

≪ Previous: Becky's Spiky Set for Threads of Memory

Shirting print star by Becky Brown

The blue shirting reproduction is from my Union Blues collection. The yardage

is scheduled for deliver in March. You can buy precuts now.

Vintage star with solid white for the background,

about 1840-1865

Quilters often used a plain white cotton for the light contrast in their quilts.

Vintage quilt, about 1830-1870

Another choice was a textured light print, something with a white background and small figures.

Vintage block about 1870-1900

Light prints became increasingly popular after

the Civil War when they were also fashionable for clothing.

Reproduction star by Bettina Havig.

The shirting print has a rabbit and some musical notes,

recognizable figures classified as a subcategory of shirting

prints: Conversation Prints.

We'll do more about conversationals later in the year.

We classify these neutrals as shirting prints today.

The prints are characterized by minimalist, monochrome figures without

much detail. The figures are set far apart

to let lots of the white background show through.

Vintage star about 1870-1900

Vintage stars about 1900

There were a lot of shirting prints manufactured,

particularly between 1870 and 1920

when the light cottons were so popular for clothing.

"Shirts" of shirtings by Carolyn Friedlander

http://carolynfriedlander.com/tag/shirts/

They are again easy to find because they are so useful

for backgrounds with a traditional look.

Reproduction North Star by Mary L at Quilting in Oz

North Star by Jayne's Quilting Room

Repro quilt from an online store

The shirting print is in the foreground in the blue block

at lower left.

Detail of Jeanne Poore's reproduction Quilt for Alice

On the left a mid-19th-century inspiration block, on the right my

interpretation of the way she used her shirtings and madder stripes.

Three shirting prints from my next Moda line

Union Blues, which should be in shops in March

;

Part of the appeal of period scrappy quilts is

the variety of shades in the lighter prints. Shirtings

and other lights were printed in different color values.

Some have become more yellow or tan over the years.

Nantucket from Seams Crazy Quilts Blog

http://www.minickandsimpson.com/catalog.php?item=132

The above version of the Minick and Simpson pattern Nantucket mixes up those values to give

a distinctive scrappy look.

http://seamscrazyquilts.com/2013/12/02/catching-up-on-everything/

Minick & Simpson's 2014 Lexington collection has many good shirting repros.

As does Primitive Gatherings' recent

Lakeside Gatherings.

Amy's star with a "neat" shirting in a regular diagonal set.

She's used it to show off

a kind of coral stripe from her stash.

Valerie's combination of a madder red print

and a shirting with a small figure.

One More Thing About Shirtings

"Superfine Shirtings."

Stamp on a quilt backing. The quilt is dated 1844.

Shirting is an old textile term and probably refers more to the cotton's weight and weave rather than the print style. Within that category were subcategories. An Oneida, New York mill entered a group of fabrics in the Great National Fair in 1846: "Extra fine shirtings, superfine shirtings, fine shirtings, twilled shirtings and striped shirtings." The category we are discussing here is shirting prints: Shirting-weight weaves with a certain style of simple print.

Setting Idea for Your Stack of Star Blocks

In strips

In this circa-1900 quilt 72 stars are

set between same-sized light squares and then

with Turkey red strips of the same width.

A Quilt for Alice by Paula Barnes

The stars are set in strips

with a small spacer between each

and then vertical strips the same width as the star.

Using a consistent shirting print background

makes the stars float.

See the pattern here:

http://www.redcrinolinequilts.com/shop/Patterns/p/A-Quilt-for-Alice-Pattern-sku-BBQ047.htm

Find out more about shirtings on pages 113-117 in my book America's Printed Fabrics and see a pattern for "Lost Ship" on page 118.

Reproduction quilt, Lost Ship by Barbara Brackman, 2002.

Shirtings and Madder Prints-

Classic mid-19th century.

Vintage shirting print yardage

Read others posts I've done about vintage shirtings:
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2014/07/shirting-document-print-for-richmond.html
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2013/03/shirting-prints-as-neutral.html

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Lincoln Crazy Quilt

September 20, 2014, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Sets for the Threads of Memory BOM

≪ Previous: Stars in a Time Warp 3: Shirting Prints

Dealer Julie Silber had an exceptional crazy quilt for

sale last week at the American Quilt Study Group meeting

in Milwaukee. It's dated 1882-1884.

The seamstress included several political ribbons

such as a Garfield/Arthur ribbon from 1880.

By 1882 Arthur was President; Garfield had

died, a victim of a gunshot wound.

Another indication of mourning:

a ribbon with a portrait of President

Lincoln, "Our Martyred Father! We

Mourn His Loss." This looks like

silk but the only example I can find online

was paper.

Paper example

The most important ribbons were two from

Lincoln's presidential campaign. The blue

ribbon on the left is in poor condition (as is my photo)

but I recall it was from the Lincoln/Hamlin campaign

of 1860.

The 1864 Lincoln/Johnson campaign ribbon is in great shape.

Two other examples

Here's a ribbon featuring Winfield Scott as

"Hero of Many Battles" from his failed 1852 campaign,

and one from the losing Winfield Scott Hancock/

William H. English ticket of 1880. The rooster

indicates they were Democrats.

The embroidered imagery on the quilt is

also striking,

particularly this painted portrait of an

older black man with two children.

Contact for Julie:

silber.julieellen@gmail.com

The Merchant's Mall at AQSG meetings is always

outstanding.

That's a temperance sampler on the left.

Next September in Indianapolis.

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Sets for the Threads of Memory BOM

January 31, 2015, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Stars in a Time Warp 4: Chrome Orange or Cheddar

≪ Previous: Lincoln Crazy Quilt

#1 Salem Star by Debra R.

Threads of Memory

I know you've all been busy, saving your setting stitching for 2015.

We are going to see some spectacular samplers over the next few months.

Debra has been working with a bird theme, an apt symbolic image

for a quilt about slavery and freedom.

# 8 Jackson Star

#11

See her Flickr page for Threads of Memory here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/middleearth510/sets/72157641410590843

We can use this post to collect instructions for the sets. I'll put a link over in the sidebar so we have URLs for all of them.

See the post with instructions for the "official set" here:
http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2014/02/three-fancy-sets-for-threads-of-memory.html

Chords of Memory by Jean Stanclift

from a design by Barbara Brackman

When Jean and I did this quilt top with stars in the sashing several years ago for a C&T pattern we called it Chords of Memory.

Detail of Chords of Memory, quilting by Lori Kukuk

Becky Brown, sketch for a set.

Here's a post for Becky's spiky Crown of Thorns set here:
http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2015/01/beckys-spiky-set-for-threads-of-memory.html

Jo's finished top

And you will want to check this address periodically to see stitchers finishing up their tops
StitchnKnit has set up a Flickr page for Threads of Memory finished samplers
https://www.flickr.com/photos/86465285@N08/galleries/72157649839111479/

Susan's

Terry's

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Stars in a Time Warp 4: Chrome Orange or Cheddar

February 4, 2015, 4:00 am

≫ Next: An Anti-Slavery Quilt from Everettville

≪ Previous: Sets for the Threads of Memory BOM

Becky Brown

Reproduction block with Chrome orange plain

and chrome yellow print

Vintage mid-19th century applique

Chrome orange is a color familiar to every collector of antique quilts.

Vintage quilt about 1870, photo from the Quilt Complex

Chrome orange in the stars and the stripes.

An Anti-Slavery Quilt from Everettville

February 7, 2015, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Stars in a Time Warp 5: Overdyed Green Solids

≪ Previous: Stars in a Time Warp 4: Chrome Orange or Cheddar

Detail of a quilt pictured in the book Massachusetts Quilts, Our Commonwealth,

edited by Lynne Zacek Bassett. (Pages 177-180).

The inked star quilt with a date of about 1845 has been associated with reformer Abby Kelley Foster. It's in the collection of the Worcester Historical Museum.In the photo of the whole quilt it appears that ten of the plain white squares have lengthy anti-slavery statements inked in the centers.

Author of the essay on this quilt, M C (perhaps Marjorie Childers) transcribed one:

"Dedicated to the cause by a few friends in Everettville, Princeton, Mass.
While ye are sleeping on your beds of down covered with quilts and costly tapestry,
many a slave lies on the cold ground, covered with naught but Heaven's broad canopy.
Remember the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair."

The book includes an overall photo of the quilt but years have taken their toll and it's so faded and stained the pattern is hard to make out. Above is a sketch in EQ7 of the design alternating two blocks. In the original there are only two fabrics, one with a pink oval figure and the other a white plain. The original has cut out corners for a four-poster bed, indicating its New England origins.

The Museum's records reveal nothing about the donor or the quilt's makers. Over the years staff passed on the story that it was somehow associated with Abby Kelley Foster, an important speaker in the radical Anti-Slavery and Women's Rights movements of the mid-19th-century.

Abby Kelley Foster (1811-1887)

Abby Kelley spent much of her life in and near Worcester, Massachusetts.

Her home Liberty Farm is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Women at an Anti-Slavery meeting about 1845.

Photo from the Madison County Historical Society,

Oneida, New York

Perhaps women in an anti-slavery organization in Everettville, Princeton, Massachusetts made the quilt for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair, where it was purchased by Foster. Another option is that it was purchased and given to her. I did a search in The Liberator, the prominent periodical of the anti-slavery groups looking for mention of the ladies of Everettville.

Everettville is a neighborhood near Lake Wachusett

This letter to the editor came up in the February 12, 1847 edition of the newpaper, which was edited by William Lloyd Garrison.

"FAVOR ACKNOWLEDGED

Friend Wm L. Garrison

May I be indulged in the acknowledgment of a favor, through the Liberator?

A few days ago, I returned to my family at Plymouth, from which I had been absent upwards of two months, on a tedious anti-slavery tour, and was show a neat and good bed-quilt, and two or three lesser articles, which had been received during my absence from an unknown source.

More recently, I have learned that they had been presented to us by the friends of the enlaved at Everettville, Princeton as a token of sympathy, and in consideration of our need, sacrifice, and devotion to the cause of the more needy victims of American oppression. Be those practical friends assured of our heart-felt gratitude for their well-timed present. They could not have made a selection of any thing of the same amount, that would have been more acceptable at this time and season.

May the donors, and the co-workers in the cause of humanity, yet have the satisfaction of knowing that the three millions of American chattel slaves in the United States have, at least, the privilege of providing themselves with a quilt, to shield them and their little ones from the inclement weather, by their own labor and industry, instead of having their backs stripped, and quilted, as at present, by the driver's lash, under a relentless despotism.

Sincerely, JONATHAN WALKER.
Great Falls, Feb. 1st, 1847

Jonathan Walker (1799-1878) in his forties

Jonathan Walker was well-known to Liberator subscribers in 1846. He was then, like Abby Kelley Foster, a speaker on the anti-slavery lecture circuit. A Massachusetts native, he and his family lived in Pensacola, Florida, where he made national news in 1844 for being arrested while assisting escaped slaves. A ship captain, he attempted to sail them from Florida to the Caribbean, but plans went awry. The escapees were returned to their owners and Walker was convicted in a Federal Court, fined $600 and sentenced after his hand was branded with the letters SS for "slave stealer."

The letters SS appear reversed in this photo of "The Branded Hand"

because daguerreotypes are viewed backwards. The photo is

in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Stars in a Time Warp 5: Overdyed Green Solids

February 11, 2015, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Threads of Memory Label

≪ Previous: An Anti-Slavery Quilt from Everettville

Vintage quilt, 1851

Detail of Sara Keplar's quilt

Vintage sunflower blocks set with stars in the sashing, about

1840-1880

The green often seen in mid-to late-19th century quilts is a grassy green, the product of two natural dyes in blue and yellow that are laid one over the other.

Sara Keplar's quilt dated 1851.

Collection of Colonial Williamsburg

See the catalog entry on the Keplar quilt here:

http://emuseum.history.org/view/objects/asitem/classification@55/1/title-asc?t:state:flow=edf2629e-fd50-4207-828a-010179ef7dc9

Elizabeth Crandell's 1852 green has held up well. Notice

the subtle shifts from yellow-green to blue-green in the swag,

indicating an overdyed green.

Vintage quilt

Shifts from yellow-green to blue-green are often not so subtle.

The lighter, yellow-green above is perhaps due to a spill on the vintage applique shown at a

Western Washington Quilt Study session. Or ...

Vintage quilt

...the shift may also be from light damage.

Was the quilt folded on that line and placed

near a window?

One of my quilts shown in Clues in the Calico.

The basket looks tie-dyed but the green is

damaged from laundering.

In the mid-19th-century quilt above the shift is from green to blue, again possible laundry damage.

Vintage quilt

Reproductions

Matching that old, over-dyed green plain fabric is difficult. (Green prints are easier---we'll discuss them later.) One aspect of the natural green dyes that adds to their beauty is the depth of color you get when two dyes are applied. It's just not done now.

Reproduction quilt by

Joy Swartz for the American Quilt Study Group's

Quilt Study in Red and Green, 2010

Joy did a great job of finding the right green.

When choosing a green to match the overdyed look you

have to consider whether you want to do the original grassy color,

or the lime green, the color shift visible today.

Moda offers two Bella Solids:

Bella Solids Pistachio (lighter) and Leaf

Sherri McConnell used both in this pieced block.

And then you have to decide whether you are looking to get that depth of color. An approximation of the over-dyed look is in the perfect batik or hand-dye.

You might have to fussy cut around the figures

but batiks can give you that blue/green---yellow/green combination

similar to the old natural greens.

Reproduction star by Becky Brown.

She found a swirly green print with the right range.

Another option is to use the wovens called shot cottons,

which are one shade of warp and another of weft.

The crossed yarns give you a sense of depth.

The darker shot cotton is Pepper Cory's Tea Green

and the lighter is Kaffe Fassett's Chartreuse.

Pistachio in Moda's CrossWeaves is scheduled for 2015 delivery.

Sue Garman's Potted Tulips

The major factor is matching the color, something Sue Garman is good at.

The wrong green just looks wrong.

It's never Kelly green as in these recent appliques.

Setting idea for your stack of star blocks:

Gang the stars into a nine patch like Sara Keplar did. See her 1851 quilt

at the top of the page.

Alternate plain squares cut 6-1/2" with your 6"

star blocks. Then alternate those 18" blocks with plain blocks

cut 18-1/2".

Barb Vedder did this chain of stars a few years ago. She set her nine-patch blocks on the straight. Sara Keplar set hers on a diagonal. Either way the quilt grows fast. It could cover Rhode Island if you can't stop making stars.

http://funwithbarbandmary.blogspot.com/2012/07/antique-star-quilt-resolved.html

One More Thing about Overdyed Greens

These greens of over-dyed blue and yellow are a good clue to a mid-19th century quilt. They were quite popular with quiltmakers but you rarely find them in clothing. About 1880 a change occurred in green colors because of a change in dye chemistry. The vibrancy of the over-dyed, natural greens was replaced by a flatter, duller green. We'll return to these greens from synthetic dyes later in the year.

An end-of-the-19th-century applique with a synthetically-dyed green

fading to khaki.

See more of my blog posts about greens in antique fabrics by clicking here:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2010/10/faded-greens.html

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2010/01/poison-green.html

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2009/08/piece-and-plenty.html

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Threads of Memory Label

February 14, 2015, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Stars in a Time Warp 6: Double Pink

≪ Previous: Stars in a Time Warp 5: Overdyed Green Solids

Here's a label to print out on treated fabric. Stitch it to

your completed Threads of Memory Sampler.

How to print:

Create a word file or a new empty JPG file that is 8-1/2" x 11".
Click on the image above.
Right click on it and save it to your file.
Print that file out 8-1/2" x 11". The label measures 5" square to give you room to write on it with
a permanent pen.
Adjust the printed page size if necessary.

Ed's finished his Threads of Memory top.

"I concocted a full sized top (approx. 72x84") from the 12 blocks using scraps from my stash and a bit of reproduction Civil War era yardage for the outside border."

And so has The Pink Deenster:

" I did a modified version of the basic setting. My sashing is 3" wide and I used stars only in the interior portion. I then added a nine-patch in the center of the cornerstone stars so that I could sneak in a little pink."

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Stars in a Time Warp 6: Double Pink

February 18, 2015, 4:00 am

≫ Next: "Confederate Quilts"

≪ Previous: Threads of Memory Label

Reproduction star in double pink prints

by Becky Brown

Block from a quilt dated 1837-1838

from the collection of the Concord Museum in Massachusetts.

Vintage quilt about 1870-1900 by Alwilda Stevens Hurd from

the Massachusetts project. Picture from the Quilt Index.

Double pinks in tops from my collection.

Pink printed cottons were popular throughout 19th century.

Vintage child's dress from Augusta Auctions

Vintage quilt about 1870-1900

Vintage quilt about 1840-1900

Dyers often referred to the pink prints as Double Pink

because two shades of madder red were printed on a white ground.

I found an ad for Double Pink Prints (5 c. a yard) in a

1911 issue of a Hendersonville, North Carolina newspaper

called The French Broad Hustler. (Meanings change over time!)

The image is from the Library of Congress's excellent site Chronicling America.

You can see the white background in the center of the star flowers,

one pink is the background, the second pink is the figures.

Technical writer Jean-Francois Persoz showed this swatch in his 1846 book on dyeing and printing,

labeling it Rose Double in French [Double Pink]. The printed plaid is two shades of pink with none

of the white showing through, making for a bright print.

Reproduction star by Bettina Havig

Vintage block 1836

Lydia Maria Child's star crib quilt looks like a single pink.

The more white ground that shows, the paler the pink.

Paler pinks

One observation is that earlier pinks (before 1860)

tended to be paler than later pinks (after 1880)

but that's an observation. No data.

Reproduction: Hartfield---When I did this

Jane Austen line years ago I wanted

a pale double pink to reflect early 19th-century taste.

Reproduction: It's easy to see the two pinks in this reproduction:

Moda's Collection for a Cause Legacy

Reproduction: Becky Brown used a pink from Terry Thompson's

Merchant's Wife to offset the Prussian blue fabrics from the same line.

Reproduction star by me atop vintage stars

I love this double pink print in the center block but it's too pale to match

the blocks I was intending to copy.

Reproduction star by me

The lighter pinks are easy to find. The more vivid shades are scarcer. You should probably buy a yard when you see one that looks accurate. If your shop carries quite a few buy 3 or 4 fat quarters instead. The look is often scrappy rather than one print carried throughout the quilt.

Vintage quilt about 1880-1910

Pale or vivid, the pinks were printed with the same chemistry and process:

Two shades of red on white.

(Why pale red is always called pink in English

is a linguistic mystery to me.)

Vintage quilt about 1880-1900

The less white remaining in the final print, the more vivid the color.

Today people call that bright pink by many names. Cinnamon Pink is one.

Quilt dated 1905

Pinks were popular for setting squares

Fabric mills continued producing vivid pinks into the 20th century. Pennsylvanians were loyal customers. The Little Jane Chintz above, what I'd call a calico, doesn't seem too colorfast, having

bled into the label.

Vintage top about 1900

Pennsylvania Germans used double pinks without a neutral.

Or maybe pink was their neutral?

Reproductions

Inspiration vintage block (top left) and reproduction by me.

The 2 pink repros on the bottom are by Judie Rothermel,

the top Collections for a Cause: Legacy.

Look for two shades of pink with or without

some white showing through.

Collections for a Cause: Community

should be in shops soon.

Floral Gatherings has accurate double pinks and chrome yellows.

Reproduction quilt by Betsy Chutchian, who

does a great job of interpreting this end-of-the-century aesthetic.

A very pink quilt.

Barb Garrett has captured the Pennsylvania German style in her

small reproduction star quilt.

Rerpoduction by Nancy Near Philadelphia.

Scrappy pinks and browns.

If the true double pink is too much---remember you don't have to go vivid.

More subtle pinks work too.

A few of my pinks from Moda and one of Mark Dunn's.

We often add a little brown to offer toned-down pinks.

Solid pinks won't do for 19th-century copies,although these Bella Solids would make good interpretations.

You just don't see many pink solids until the 1930s. My guess is they weren't colorfast and everybody knew it. Double pink prints gave you the same effect with much more durability.

Reproduction star by Bettina Havig

Read more about Double pinks in pages 33-35 of my book Making History: Quilts and Fabric from 1890-1970.

What to do with your stack of stars?

Use them in a border.

Piece them together side-by-side for a 6" finished border in a medallion-style quilt.

Enduring Love by Carol Hopkins

Frame an applique or pieced center or a printed panel.

Pride and Glory by Annemarie S. Yohnk

www.QuiltsRemembered.com

Bobbi Finley, Jane Austen panel

Eva Severance

Bettina Havig, Wedgewood

One More Thing About Double Pink

One reason double pinks were so popular in quilts is that they were the staple fabric in girl's dresses. In 1871, Luna Warner at 15 was considered young enough for pink prints. Her mother brought home "four kinds of pink calico" for her dresses.

Read more about Double Pink in my book Making History: Quilts & Fabric from 1890-1970, pages 33-35.

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