Civil War Quilts

Small flag quilt

Date inscribed 1862

38 1/4" by 32 1/4 "

This quilt has been in my file of quilts related to the Civil War for several years. It's been handled by a few antique dealers and was auctioned at Sotheby's last year. The date of 1862 in the lower right corner is part of the quilt's value.

I haven't felt completely confident about the date that is embroidered (?) on one of the flags.

1862 is inscribed in the stripe of one flag.

The overall quilt-style just doesn't look 1862. If it were not dated I would guess it was pieced between 1870 and 1890.

My dating guess is based on three style characteristics.

1) The major pattern,what might be called a charm quilt of triangles.

2) The strip border.

3) The corner treatment in the strip border.

1) The Pattern: Charm Quilt

1) The major pattern is in the style called charm quilt---a sampler of prints. This is not a true charm quilt as there are numerous duplicate prints, but very few charm quilts achieved the goal of no two prints alike.

The pattern of squares half dark and half light is common.

The small quilt above is date-inscribed 1897.

1862 Flag quilt detail

The style idea in a charm quilt is to use prints for both light and dark areas and stitch the quilt from only one shape.

This flag quilt is the earliest date-inscribed quilt in this style that I've seen. Anytime one finds a very early or a very late example---an outlier---one should be suspicious.

Quilt date-inscribed 1876

The charm style was extremely fashionable in the 1870s. Here's the next-earliest version I've seen with a date on it, pieced of Centennial Prints in 1876, the date of the U.S. Centennial celebration.

Quilt date-inscribed 1882

Small quilt date-inscribed 1883 from the

Nickols collection at San Diego's Mingei Museum.

Many quilts were made in charm style after 1870. One gets the feeling quilters were celebrating a new abundance of American prints in new styles, such as the black (brown?) lace print that is the border here. Lace prints in stripes were quite popular in the 1880s.

Quilt date-inscribed 1869, documented by the Heritage Quilt Project

of New Jersey, photo from the Quilt Index

This is the closest thing I have found dated in the 1860's and it's similar only in the use of the half-square triangle and prints for the light colored areas. The large white triangles are a solid white. It's not a charm quilt but it is pieced of half-square triangles.

2) The Border Style

The border pieced of multiple strips is also a style seen more after 1870 than before. This is not one of the strongest clues to date; thereare earlier quilts with multiple strip borders.

3) The border corner treatment.

A stronger clue to a post-Civil War date is in the way the borders turn the corners. The style is not mitered and is not even pieced to look mitered. The strips are just seamed as they were added, in a rather casual fashion typical of the late-19th and early 20th century. Today people call the style a run-on border.

See a post I wrote on this late 19th-century border corner here:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2013/06/run-on-borders.html

My thinking is that the crib quilt is more typical of Centennial-style quilts

Such as this quilt pieced of triangles framing a central panel printed to commemorate

the 1876 Centennial and four flags cut from another Centennial commemorative.

The two flag quilts above and below were pictured in the series Why Quilts Matter: History, Art & Politics

An undated charm quilt of rectangles featuring a flag in the collection of the New England Quilt Museum. Is it a Centennial quilt celebrating 100 years of American independence and a lot of calico?

Next week the defense for a Civil War date on the crib quilt gets an airing. (I'm doing both sides of the debate here all by myself but if you have ideas do comment, please!).

Star of woven plaids and stripes by Becky Brown

Vintage block, perhaps 1850-1880

It's is hard to believe the woven green plaid is that old

but it is.

Here's a swatch from an 1851 British journal with similar design.

"Manufactured ...for the American market."

What was different about the "American market?"

Vintage star quilt with plaids and stripes,

about 1840-1860.

We've looked at the rage for printed plaids during the 1840s-1860s decades, See the post here:

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2015/04/stars-in-time-warp-13-printed-plaids.html

End-of-the-19th-century block with a

variety of checks and plaids

Plaids come and go in fashion but simple woven plaids are a classic.

Woven plaids are among the easiest patterns to create with yarns of different colors. The design is as old as the loom. Here the loom is strung with dark and medium brown yarns (the warp). The weaver crosses with dark and light yarns (the weft).

Vintage mid-19th-century star in the Helen Louise Allen Textile

Collection at the University of Wisconsin.

The brown center pinwheel above looks to be woven, in contrast to the printed grid design in the background.

Detail of a quilt from the Norfolk (Connecticut) Historical Society.

Woven plaids and checks are little help in dating a quilt.

That pink windowpane check could have been woven in

1790 or 2015. Fortunately for us the blocks are dated in the 1850s.

The rest of the cottons in this star look about 1870-1900---the

woven plaid, a classic.

Mid-19th-century doll quilt

We know it's mid-19th-century because of the prints;

the plaids and checks tell us nothing.

We might call these fabrics ginghams.

In the past gingham meant any plain weave, yarn-dyed fabric,

so one could have solid ginghams too.

Five ginghams, two prints in a block from about 1835.

I'm counting the pink as a gingham too.

Table of fabric prices from the Library of Congress, ca. 1870

"White Goods, Linens, Printed Cottons, Ginghams, etc."

Colored cottons were either Printed or Gingham

Woven plaids and checks---commonplace fabric---became fashionable again at the turn of the 20th century.

Checks are related...

to stripes and chambrays---

woven pattern of colored yarns.

Woven plaids are a great way to get a ca. 1900 look.

Above and below: Vintage quilts, about 1900

Consider them a good contrast to fancier printed goods

in any of your 19th-century repro blocks.

Reproduction block by Bettina Havig

It's hard to tell from the photo whether the background

check is printed or woven. It really doesn't matter. She's captured

the look of the shirting fashion.

Could this blue check from about 1890 be printed?

Again it's the look that's important.

Reproductions

Two recent collections from French General

and Primitive Gatherings

Rosemary Youngs has been making

stars for a Japanese taupe project.

You can also find excellent plaids in places

like the rag bag, the back of the closet and the

thrift shop.

Use shirts,

Even if they seem a little strange---or too modern.

Vintage block about 1900

The bright plaids in this mid-19th-century star could have

been woven yesterday.

What To Do With Your Stack of Star blocks?

Alternate checkerboard blocks.

Set the stars with a checkerboard of squares cut 2" (WAIT! That's 2-1/2") to make a 6" finished checkerboard.

The Lincoln Museum quilt by Deb Rowden

Deb and I made this plaid quilt for the Lincoln

log cabin at the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Illinois.

Plaid fabrics in a plaid set.

Scraps too small to save?

Never.

Cut 16 squares 2" x 2",

Bobbi Finley, Hancy's Stars

Bobbi pieced the small quilt from a reproduction fabric collection of mine called 1862: Battle Hymn.

It's a different star with checkerboard center and a 16-patch checkerboard for setting.

One More Thing About Woven Plaids

Mid-19th-century star quilt from the Pat Nickols

collection at the Mingei Museum

Add a green gingham to your mid-19th-century scrappy quilts.

Scrappy block from the 1860-1900 years.

Log cabin from the 1870-1890's

It's surprising how many green checks you see in mid-century scrap quilts. It may be that a woven green check, what they might have called an apron check, was common everyday clothing. Bright green calico prints were not really for clothing, but a subdued green check was just the thing for a work dress---and the scrapbag.

Union Cradle Quilt by Barbara Brackman.

Green checks and gold checks.

The pattern for this quilt is in my book Civil War Women

Read more about woven plaids in both my books on fabric dating: America's Printed Fabrics (pp 94-98) and Making History (pp 45-46).

Last week I posted on my skepticism about the date inscribed on this crib quilt.

Could it be that a flag dated 1862 was used in a quilt made in the 1870s? Or that the date 1862 commemorated an event that happened a decade before the quilt was made?

Wendy suggested the possibility that the date might have been 1882 with some stitching missing. I doubt that in this case. That 2 is pretty clear above, but I have seen a crazy quilt dated 1693 where someone removed some of the stitching to make it look older.

Anthony Iasso shows this hand-made 35 star flag:

http://www.rareflags.com/RareFlags_Showcase_IAS_00090.htm

The flags may indeed have been made in 1862. See a hand-made calico flag attributed to the Civil War years in this post:

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2015/03/palmyra-mitchells-patchwork-flag.html

Do note that the date on the flag in the charm quilt is upside down. Or the flag is upside down---a traditional signal of distress.

The comments last week were helpful. Barbara Schaffer noted that the crib quilt was once part of textile historian Florence Peto's collection:

"Peto had originally purchased this quilt from a local [NJ] dealer and wrote about it in a letter to Elizabeth Richardson on June 12, 1949: '. . . woe is me, I fell for it. Cute. Entire center of tiny one-inch squares, diagonalled - half light, half dark; makes sparkling tile pattern. The border - red and white stripes which form an American Flag at two of the corners. The quiltmaker was able to squeeze in 6 white stars on the blue field - but - ? homespun backing but the date is 1862. The calicoes are same as those of the swatches that came in a carton I purchased recently from The Patchwork House (antiques) in Hightstown, NJ.'"

This week the defense gets an argument too. Or....

Why I may be wrong in being such a skeptic.

Clues to an actual 1860s date:

4) Red, white and blue solid fabrics in the border.

5) Prints show nothing really typical of the 1870s or '80s.

4) Red, white and blue solids

Quilt sold by James Julia auctions

The idea of using solid-color cottons to make a patriotic quilt

was popular during the Civil War.

Inspired by this July 1861 pattern in Peterson's Magazine

Maryland quilt dated 1861 from the Maryland project's book,

Maryland Album: Quiltmaking Traditions, 1644-1934

The striped border on the crib quilt dated 1862 is consistent with that style.

5) Prints show nothing typical of post-Civil-War years.

Detail of the triangles in the crib quilt dated 1862.

This may be the strongest argument for an actual 1862 date. I haven't seen the quilt in the cloth but one can see a lot of detail in the online photos. I was looking for particular prints that were quite popular in the 1870s and '80s but not typical of the 1860s. I found only negative evidence.

Crib quilt dated 1883 from the Pat Nickols Collection at the Mingei Museum

I was looking for date-specific styles like this lace print pictured above. Lace prints were a fad in the 1870s and '80s. But nothing specifically "1870s" jumped out at me in the flag quilt.

Charm quilt inscribed "Centennial 1876"

Even better evidence of a later date would have been one of these prints commemorating the nation's 1876 Centennial ( the two darker grid-set patches on either side of the date above.)

The crib quilt, which has a different brown cast

to it than the quilts made after 1870. It's a subtle clue.

Those triangles could very well be prints from the 1860s, making the case that this crib quilt was not only made during the Civil War, but it is the earliest date-inscribed charm quilt in my files.

It's a hung jury.

Reproduction block with a paisley star by Becky Brown

Tintype of a woman in a cashmere shawl, about 1860

What we call paisleys derive from woven cashmere shawls, which originated in India’s Kashmir region, home to soft wools and deft weavers.

Vintage British quilt about 1820-1840

Traditional patterns included stylized botanicals focusing on a cone or seedpod shape, seen in the lilac border on the right. This oval with a curled tail was known as the botha or boteh (from the Hindi buta for flower).

Textile manual in German from the

New York Public Library

The botanical source for the boteh design is in some dispute. Some textile historians see it as a pinecone, others as a gourd or the shoot of a date palm, possibly associated with fertility.

Portait of a woman by William Powell Frith.

Is she wearing an expensive Kashmir shawl or

a European knock-off?

European factories from Lyons and Rheims to Norwich and Manchester produced machine-woven shawls, but Scotland specialized in them. Pieces made in the west coast town of Paisley earned a reputation as the best. Soon the Kashmir shawl became known as the Paisley shawl and the characteristic boteh shape was called a paisley.

The fashion for wool shawls also inspired imitation cotton prints, first known as shawl prints.
Mid-19th-century quilters developed a passion for cotton prints that imitated the colors as well as the designs of the shawls.

Reproduction with the document swatch from my

Civil War Homefront collection.

Madder dyes used in wool shawls also worked well with cotton printing processes.

The prints were popular for dressing gowns (wrappers) and furnishings for the boudoir so there were many sewing scraps, but the style was so important for quilts that much yardage must have been sold just for patchwork.

Vintage block about 1870-1890

One sees these madder-style paisleys in quilts from the 1860s into the 1890s. The high point of the style seems to be the 1870s and ‘80s.

Vintage print from the last half of the 19th century

Paisley figures were often set in striped sets, which quilters

liked for borders and strips

and everything else....

Block dated 1875

Vintage print from the 20th century

Cone shapes were also set in what textile designers

call a tossed set.

Paisley dresses from 1968

A serious paisley revival took place in the 1960s; the cones here

in a tossed set.

Vintage quilt about 1870-1900

Sashing strips include a tossed paisley on the sides

and a stripe paisley on the bottom.

Paisley from the early 19th century

set foulard style, or in a staggered half-drop repeat.

Reproductions

Shawn used a paisley center as a contrast to a lighter foulard background.

Terrific reproduction of mid-century madder style taste.

Flying Geese from Nancy's Quilts webpage, 1998.

You need tossed sets, stripe sets and foulard sets

in your paisley collection

Detail of a paisley reproduction by Roseanne Smith

Rue Indienne by French General for Moda

Three of mine: Striped set, tossed set and grid set

Another of my repros in a stripe set.

Reproduction star by Becky Brown

The dark paisley foulard in the background is from

Alice's Scrapbag, my fall Moda collection.

The repro is the redder print in the corner. The other is the original.

Sales reps are showing this collection to shop owners right now.

It's both a paisley and a foulard. And a madder-style print too.

Two of Nancy Gere's many paisley repros.

Paula Barnes does

border stripes and neat stripes.

Pam Weeks

Moda Collections for a Cause: Charity

Jo Morton's Caswell County:

Foulards and Paisleys

Voila by Jo Morton

Border is the Leesburg indienne print below

in a different colorway

Jo Morton Leesburg

Atelier by 3 Sisters

A tossed set in colors popular in the 1880s and '90s,

a different brown with more green in it than red.

More on bronze colors later.

Paisleys Gone Wild by Becky Brown

What to Do with Your Stack of Stars?

Alternate with a Nine Patch.

The star is based on a Nine Patch with a proportion of 1:2:1 so a block based on the same geometry goes well.

My sewing group alternated stars and nine-patches

in our Summer Birthdays William Morris quilt.

Summer Birthdays by the Sew Whatevers

I found the same idea in Quilts by Katlin,

A few years ago Moda's Three Sisters did a Hollywood and Vines quilt

alternating the star with a four patch in the middle of the nine patch

One More Thing About Paisley Prints

Sandra Dallas’s 1995 novel about a quilting club in Kansas during the Great Depression established the name Persian Pickle for the boteh design. I could find no 19th-century references to “Persian Pickle” or anything that didn’t have to do with Dallas’s book. That’s the thing about good fiction—it can make you believe it’s all very real.

See a discussion of that name in my post and in the comments. In Russian they called the boteh a Gherkin.

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2010/04/persian-pickles-and-shawl-prints.html

Quilt dated 1862

32-1/4" x 38-1/4"

I have been rattling on about this scrappy triangle quilt dated 1862, my main point being if it is indeed dated 1862 it's the earliest dated example of the charm-style (or extreme scrappy quilt) that I've got in my photographic files.

But then I was looking in my closet

And found this!

46" x 58"

An undated crib quilt that is quite similar. Very, very similar except for being on the diagonal. I know this quilt well. I've owned it for 25 years or more.

Ocean Waves reproduction by Barbara Brackman

I made a copy when I first started working for Moda using reproduction prints I'd done.

Here the colors are a little bluer. The copy is on the left.

How old is the original?

I've always estimated it as 1870 or before.

The back is a beautiful linen bird toile that I have guessed is much older than the rest of the quilt. Terry Thompson and I did a copy for our first Moda line Floral Trails. The plate-print toile is about 1800-1830, maybe.

I bought the original quilt in Los Angeles. It has a white-ground chintz border with some dark-ground chintzes along the edges---Again, I've always guess that fabric was older than the prints in the rest of the quilt. I've looked at this quilt extensively and found no fabrics that look to be post Civil War, so I estimated it as 1840-1860.

What makes me so mad at myself is that I had never noticed the similarity to the 1862 flag quilt until this week.

I adjusted the detail so the blocks are the same size, the same orientation and the same adjusted color. They are identical---so close it's weird, actually. Both quilts are before 1870.

As Paula said in the comments last week:

"I was struck by the limited range of dye colors, such as madder and Prussian blue, in contrast with your later examples with wider variety and brighter colors typical of the later period. I also collect antique quilts and it bears a striking resemblance to my apparently earlier ones...."

I have changed my mind about the quilt. The field of triangles could very well be 1862, the same date as the flags.

Like Paula most of us have a good eye and a good memory for color. She went on to say,

"To me the colors tell the story of an earlier date, with perhaps the border and flags as a later addition."

Marianne had the same reaction:

"To me, the stripes and flags just scream added at a later date."

Here I've adjusted the photos to show the difference in sizes. The flag quilt is smaller, has many more pieces and the triangles are smaller. The triangles in mine finish to 3-1/2" squares.

There is something visually unsettling about the 1862 quilt---it does scream later, but I have no argumentative leg to stand on now. (Metaphors are flying about.)

The jury is back with a revised verdict. That 1862 quilt is probably all 1862.

And the triangles may be earlier....

Have I wasted your time and mine? No. We had a good discussion. We learned things. I remembered that I had this fabulous quilt. And I have spent a lot of time looking at Centennial quilts and charm quilts, gathering information which will keep us entertained in future posts.

I'm going to spend some time looking at my triangle quilt. Is it way earlier than I guessed 20 years ago. I'm somewhat smarter than I used to be---if more forgetful.

Two earlier posts on the date arguments:

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2015/04/1862-crib-quilt-questions.html

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2015/04/1862-crib-quilt-could-it-actually-be.html

Cynthia used a conversation print with her chrome orange

reproduction in February.

Vintage quilt about 1870-1890

The blue shirting pictures a small jingle bell.

We always enjoy coming upon a conversation print while examining an antique quilt. The subject matter and detail give us something to talk about, which must be where these prints get their name. "Conversation prints" or "conversationals" feature figures of recognizable objects other than florals or abstract geometrics. Today manufacturers call them "novelties."

A vintage dog print.

From a French swatchbook by Persoz.

He is showing a roller print for shirts printed in 1846

by the Koechlin Brothers mill of Alsace.

The finely drawn, light-weight cottons shown here were a subcategory of shirting prints.

A terrific small quilt with fussy-cut conversationals, about 1900.

Sporting print, a subcategory of conversationals.

Horseshoes, jockeys and racing images were a common theme.

The printers often referred to the detailed prints as mill-engravings, a reference to the printing technique. In this case, the word "mill" does not mean the textile factory, but rather the old die and mill technology introduced in the early nineteenth century. A mill made of hard metal like steel impressed pattern into a cylinder or roller made of copper.

The mill is harder metal impressing a pattern into the roller, which is softer metal, sort of like this diagram. When the softer metal roller began to wear out the mill could re-impress the pattern on to the copper.

A woman working on a cylinder or roller about 1870.

After 1870, that technology became inexpensive enough that textile factories could print quirky designs like bees or flies, patterns which did not promise to be big sellers.

Horses, however, must have been popular prints.

Vintage top with horse, anchor and horse shoes, about 1880-1900.

Vintage indigo blue anchor print, about 1900.

During the latter part of the nineteenth century, at the same time that the mill-engraved conversational shirtings were popular for clothing and quilts, factories also produced conversational prints featuring white figures on Turkey red or indigo blue grounds.

The dark prints, which were quite popular for children’s clothing, appear in quilts from about 1880 through 1920. They rarely show the detail of the mill engravings, and are primarily sporting prints, another subcategory of conversationals. Anchors and sailing images, horse shoes and racing equipment are common in these red and blue shirtings.

Reproductions

Reproduction star by Becky Brown.

She's divided the center square

into 4 squares and rotated the bicyclists around.

Happy Hexagons by Wendy Caton Reed.

Each light hexagon features a converation print...

as you can see in this detail.

Terry Thompson did a line of shirtings a few years ago.

Conversationals are another example of "Buy a yard when you see it."

Lisa Bongean's recent Lakeside Gathering

From American Folk and Fabric

From Classic Conversationals by Judie Rothermel

A nice range of conversationals in Ascot

One of Amy's stars in January set with a rooster print.

And another of Becky's with a dog.

Is that the same dog in the 1886 Bloomingdale's catalog?

You could buy a boy's shirt already made.

"American Percale, in a beautiful variety of heads, birds, figures, etc.,

very stylish and striking effects."

What to Do with Your Stack of Star Blocks?

Alternate a HST.

(current quilters' jargon for a square pieced of 2 Half-Square Triangles.)

Vintage quilt from about 1900.

The taupes and tans may have once been bright reds and blues. This quilt alternating stars and triangles blocks is from the decades when solid color cottons were quite fugitive.

Same idea with more contrast. Cut your triangles for the alternate squares 8-7/8" . Cut into 2 triangles with a diagonal slice.

If you set the stars and alternate blocks on point you can get a different look

as in this quilt from about 1870-1910.

Wish...Upon A Star by Joe Wood for Thimblecreek Quilts

You might want to control shading and color to make an alternate block quilt look like a strip quilt.

One More Thing About Conversation Prints

Another subcategory of conversationals is commemorative prints. These reproductions are based on patriotic variations perhaps printed during the Civil War.

The Union Forever, a reproduction

It's hard to know if these were printed during the war or commemoratives.

Union, one of my reproductions, out of print.

The 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia inspired many

souvenir prints

Vintage quilt with Centennial sashing dated 1776-1876

This Washington print is dated 1776 but it's another Centennial design from 1876.

Two similar reproductions

Read more about conversation prints in America's Printed Fabrics, pages 112-117

Butterfly symbolizing the "soul of the

Confederacy beautiful and immortal."

Embroidered silk quilt by Varina Howell Davis

about 1865-1880.

Collection of the Museum of the Confederacy.

This quilt of nine silk squares is a treasure of the Richmond museum housed in the Confederate White House where Varina Davis spent much of the Civil War as First Lady of the Confederacy.

The Confederate White House

Library of Congress

There are several written records of Varina Howell Davis (1826-1906) and her sewing. She told friend Mary Chesnut in 1864 that she was too distracted and miserable to read, "But I sew hard."

Drawing of Jefferson Davis in prison by Alfred R. Waud.

Library of Congress

After the surrender of the Confederacy in 1865 husband Jefferson Davis was imprisoned at Fortress Monroe near Norfolk,Virginia. Varina and her baby lived in quarters near him, "a wretchedly dull place," she wrote.

Varina and her namesake daughter,

called Winnie, born in June, 1864.

In her misery, she began working on a new quilt. The first task was gathering fabric; she wrote a friend requesting that mutual friend Lydia Johnston send pieces of silk dresses, "the oldest fashioned silk she has will do...the size of the scrap I send. I am making a quilt, and each square is to be a memory of better days."

Varina, about forty years old, apparently associated quiltmaking with aging. Always an articulate writer, she quoted Shakespeare in alluding to the autumn of her life. Making a quilt

"is my first symptom of the sere and yellow leaf which has been content with my body, and until now left my mind untarnished."

My guess is that this quilt of nine embroidered squares is the piece she began in Norfolk in 1865. The brown squares may be the fabrics from General Joseph Johnston's family.

Varina complained about her sewing skills in such a difficult period, writing that she spent her time "Sewing a little, but rip it out, knitting a little, but ravel it." However, the embroidery and applique on this quilt is magnificent. It may have taken her years to finish it.

See the quilt at the Museum of the Confederacy's online Quilt Exhibit.
http://www.moc.org/exhibitions/museum-confederacys-quilts?mode=general

You can enlarge the pictures and look at every detail.

Margaret and Winnie Davis,

Jefferson & Varina Davis's daughters

In 1925 Margaret's daughter Varina Davis Hayes Webb (1879-1934) donated the quilt to the Museum of the Confederacy with notes describing the symbolism in the imagery---the passion flowers, ivy, oak and bleeding hearts.

Four Generations

Photo from the Confederate Veteran, 1907

In this 1906 photo Varina Howell Davis, nearly 80 years old, poses with daughter Margaret Davis Hayes on the right and granddaughter Varina Hayes Webb on the left. The baby is Varina Margaret Webb.

Reproduction block by Becky Brown,

a California style print in the center.

Vintage block about 1900

The smallest stripe is California or California gold, a fabric style popular with quilters

from about 1850 until the 1890s.

Vintage girls' dresses in California gold

An 1851 fashion note from Godey’s Lady’s Book recommended as dress fabric “an intense yellow, not disagreeable in small spots or stripes upon a white ground, called by the French ‘California’.”

A "not disagreeable" vintage print

My guess is that their “California” print might refer to chrome orange or chrome yellow as figures on a white ground for cotton. The style featured fine chrome orange lines on white. The eye reads the fabric as peach or butterscotch These pale orange calicoes appear in mid-century patchwork and were often used after the Civil War.

Quilt top dated 1878

One of the most common prints features a tiny heart.

Vintage quilt late-19th-century.

Note the patch.

A bolt label and a piece of the fabric from the Passaic Mills in New Jersey.

"Orange frock print" for dresses

Vintage quilt about 1880-1900

Detail of the quilt above.

Dots on a grid were another popular staple print.

Becky used a brown dot on yellow to reproduce the look

Vintage top quilt dated 1903

The Pennsylvania Germans held on to their taste for bright greens and yellows

while mainstream quilters moved on to navy blues, wine reds and grays.

Another name for the print style was bouton d'or, French for gold button or buttercup. But the style is more orange than buttercup yellow. Godey's described it "as exactly the color of the double gilt buttons worn upon dresses some season ago."

Fashion notes from the English

Ladies' Companion & Monthly Magazine, 1853

describing dresses for young ladies

of "all colours; rose, white, blue, bouton d'or, &c."

"Bouton d'or and mallow colour are also very fashionable hues for trimming bonnets."
The Illustrated London News, Volume 21, May, 1857.

Vintage block: late-19th-century

Often a simple figure on a geometric background of plaid or stripe.

Vintage block, late 19th-century with a staple print

Another staple figure on a honeycomb background.
Staple prints are those produced year after year.
Another name in the trade is "Bread & Butters" because
staple prints are where the mills made the large profits..

Reproductions

Judie Rothermel's Shirts & Ties, "Saffron dots"

Vintage dot on a hexagon net

Jo Morton collection

Notice I am not offering you a lot of options.

Look in other categories of fabric for the right butterscotch shade.

Check the checks and plaids section for the right shade of yellow with white or tan.

Dots

and more dots.

What to Do with Your Stack of Stars?
Stars & Stripes

Piece alternate blocks out of 3 strips cut 3-1/8" x 6-1/2".

The blocks above are a detail from this little medallion.

Star Medallion by Kathleen Tracy

See more of her quilts on this Pinterest page:
https://www.pinterest.com/daidoman/kathleen-tracy-quilts/

Lincoln reproduction quilt from Huckleberry Stitches blog

http://huckleberrystitches.blogspot.com/2013/08/ayos-lincoln.html

She used many fabrics from my old

Metropolitan Fair collection for Moda.

The pattern is Lincoln by Carrie Nelson from her Schnibbles line.

A little medallion from about 1880....

interpreted by Legends and Lace

A loose version of the idea from about 1960.

The strips could be random sizes.

One More Thing About California style prints

Block with three related prints

Chrome orange, chrome yellow and California

The “California” print seems to have been tasteful enough for the fashionable to wear. Brighter chrome orange or chrome yellow was not appropriate for dress.

Fashion correctness was a concern. Textile historians Susan Mellar and Joost Elffers found an 1851 swatch, a yellow and blue printed plaid with a white ground. The swatch was “given the name ‘California’ (probably to cash in on the allure of the California gold rush) by its French maker Koechlin of Alsace.”

In the swatch book they viewed, a pessimist had written a note: “It will not have success. It will not sell much in Paris, they are afraid of the color."

Many European printers designed fabrics for the foreign market---their former and present colonies in the Americas and Africa. California may have been designed for the American market.

Reproduction block by Becky Brown

Detail of Varina Davis's Butterfly quilt

in the Museum of the Confederacy

See last week's post on its making:

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2015/05/varina-daviss-butterfly-quilt.html

Varina Howell Davis suffered a good deal of loss in her life. She outlived all four of her sons. In 1872, while living in Memphis, her youngest boy Billy died at 10 of diptheria, a common deadly childhood illness.

William Davis at about 6 years old

Varina's 1931 biographer Eron Rowland wrote that Varina sought solace in working for her church, St. Lazarus Episcopal.

The Davis's lived on Court Street in Memphis.

The historic house was demolished in the 1930s.

"It was during her stay in Memphis [1869- 1878] that she began her famous quilt that became the wonder and admiration of so many of her friends." This is probably Varina's Butterfly quilt now in the collection of the Museum of the Confederacy.

That quilt was actually begun in 1865 right after the Confederate surrender. The lavishly embroidered blocks obviously took some time to complete.

Jefferson and Varina Davis about 1868

Varina seems to have donated that quilt to the church in 1872 or 1873 for a fundraiser. She had organized a fund to purchase silver communion pieces to replace the old pewter. Perhaps the silk quilt went for that cause. Rowland quotes a letter from family friend Ambrose Dudley Mann living in Paris in June, 1873, who offered to buy the quilt rather than see it raffled off.

Diplomat A. Dudley Mann (1801-1899)

"I beg you to frankly write me how large an amount is expected to be realized from the Raffle (I abominate that word.)"

The letter, writes Rowland, gives the "impression that [the embroidered silken memento of the Confederacy] might have been purchased by the author."

The Butterfly quilt then might be dated 1865-1873. Mann might have purchased it. Somehow the quilt wound up in the possession of Varina's granddaughter who donated it to the Museum of the Confederacy fifty years later.

Virginia Tunstall Clay (1825-1915)

There is one more written reference to the silk quilt. After the Civil War Varina's husband fell in love with Virginia Clay, a younger, married woman. A friend of the family, Virginia exchanged romantic letters with Jefferson Davis, who told her she was one of the few to whom he shared his"secret thoughts." What kind of a relationship this close friendship was, and what Varina thought of it, we cannot tell. The Davises spent much of their marriage living apart and the years when Jefferson Davis was enthralled with Mrs. Clay were no exception.

One day Mrs. Clay paid a visit to Mrs. Davis in Memphis. In an April 1, 1872 letter to Virginia Clay, Jefferson Davis wrote:

"Mrs. Davis told me of your pleasant social visit to her...told of your kind offer of material to finish the quilt and asks me to write to you that there would be time enough to use it, but that is is unnecessary."

The editors of Jefferson Davis's letters from this period, ‎Lynda Lasswell Crist and ‎Suzanne Scott Gibbs, speculate the quilt discussed is the Butterfly Quilt. Apparently the quilt was almost finished, and Varina declined Virginia's offer of more fabric. Or perhaps Varina did not care to include fabric from Virginia Clay in her memento of better times.

Jefferson Davis, Junior, 1857-1878

Memphis must have had many sad memories. Varina's last surviving son Jefferson Davis, Jr. died during a yellow fever epidemic there in 1878. He was 21 years old. Varina left Memphis soon after.

Obituary portrait of Varina Davis (1826-1906)

Varina Howell Davis led a fascinating American life.

Publicity about the 1931 biography of Varina

This biography casts her in the familiar role of wife.

Joan E. Cashin's recent First Lady of the Confederacy: Varina Davis's Civil War looks closer at Varina as an individual.

Reproduction star by Becky Brown

Vintage block, 1820-1850

Serpentine stripes, which snake along the fabric's surface, were quite popular in the first half of the 19th century.

Vintage flowers set in a striped set, but a serpentine striped set.

We're changing our focus here, going back into the 1800-1840 era, when serpentine stripes were IT.

Detail of a cotton dress about 1820 from

Charles A. Whitaker auctions

Early Medallion framed by triangles of stripes---serpentine

and straight (neat stripes, about which more later)

Serpentine stripe reproduction by Becky Brown

Vintage block, 1820-1840

Combination of a serpentine stripe with an indigo neat stripe.

Serpentine stripes add fussy-cut effects to hexagons

as in this early quilt. Also notice the border.

It's 4 diamonds, 3 shaded one way, 1 another.

Valerie's purple repro block included a serpentine stripe in the center.

Another reproduction star by Becky

She and Valerie have the same print in different colorways.

Vintage block, 1820-1840-

Note the unusual shape that is pieced of the serpentine stripes. It fits with hexagons

and offers more fussy-cutting possibilities.

Rainbow shading in a serpentine stripe

Girl, about 1840

Undulating stripes soften the lines of the dress so curved stripes might have been a fashion demand. But rollers printed these stripes easily and well, so the fad could also have been caused merely by the novelty of the cylinder print machines.

Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection

at the University of Wisconsin

Detail of an early 19th-century scrap quilt.

Curvy stripes add to the busyness of the classic chintz look.

Mill book with illustrations for fabric about 1825.

Reproductions

Turkey red and a purple stripe by Becky Brown

The purple looks like the 1825 swatches

Terry Thompson and I reproduced this print for Coral Gardens

back in the '90s.

Sharon and Jason Yenter have a lovely example

in their Circa 1825 line for In the Beginning...

used here in a reproduction from Busy Thimble blog

Nancy Gere may be the queen of serpentine stripes.

She reproduces them often and well.

Lori at Humble Quilts used that blue stripe above.

A reproduction dress seen at Hearts Full of Joy blog.

SF's block using a popular repro print.

It was in the Sarah Johnson line from the Shelburne Museum

Here it is again in Old Virginia by Mariann Simmons. The print is rather strange and

quite accurate.

A recent repro from Mary Koval's Edith

Val has a piece of another old favorite

What to Do With Your Stack of Stars?

Make Blocks of Different Sizes

Star Happy Quilts by Judy Martin

We're working with 6" stars but you could be making 3", 9" or 12" stars too. With a little bit

of extra setting fabric you can give these vintage-looking stars a more contemporary look.

America by Leere Aldrich

Winter Blues

from A Year of Cozy Comforts by Dawn Heese.

Dawn alternated a large star with a 9-patch pieced of small stars.

Your 6-inch stars in a Nine Patch block would finish to 18".

If you alternated 5 big stars (finishing to 18") and 4 nine patches.....

You'd need only 20 small stars to wind up with a 54" quilt.

The nine patches are called Cluster of Stars and are BlockBase pattern #1710.

Those big stars would be an excellent spot for a Serpentine Stripe.

One More Thing About Serpentine Stripes

The Smithsonian's History Museum owns a quilt made

by Martha Washington and her granddaughter Eliza Custis.

The brown stripe in the center border is supposed to be one

of Martha's dresses

That serpentine stripe was reproduced during the Centennial in 1876. Note the stripes going both ways. It's a rather basic print, possibly American manufactured. It's probably a little too primitive to be commercially viable today. But now you know what to look for if you are channeling Martha.

Read more about the quilt here:

http://quilt1812warandpiecing.blogspot.com/2012_01_01_archive.html

Repro by Becky Brown.

She's added seams to the center

square to fussy-cut the serpentine stripe.

Read more about serpentine stripes in my book America's Printed Fabric, pages 37-39

Appliqued GAR badge,

detail of a remarkable Pennsylvania

Civil-War commemorative quilt.

The quilt is attributed to Sarah Bright Anderson Lea (About 1833-1918.) Collection: Sewickley Valley Historical Society. They date it as 1890 based on the stars in a flag on the reverse side.

The center is an appliqued window with Victorian woodwork and flower pots

on the sill. Lady Liberty is at the top under a shower of stars. The bearded men look

to be late-19th century dignitaries.

More embroidery under the sill shows a camp of tents with scenes of army life.

Detail of the left hand side.

Above the window is a stuffed eagle with more figures.

Along the sides are regimental patches.

The symbols were a popular identification image

at Grand Army of the Republic reunions.

Souvenir flag from a Chicago reunion in 1900

Souvenir GAR bandana

Flags with corp badges also decorated G.A.R. halls.

The family and the museum speculate that the quilt was made "in connection with a celebration or commemoration sponsored by the G. A. R." Sarah's husband Benjamin Franklin Lea (About 1843-February 15, 1918) was a private in Company A, 101st Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiment.

Allegheny City is the North Side, north of Pittsburgh's

Allegheny River

He joined G. A. R. Post No. 162 in Allegheny City north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on January 19, 1889. He and Sarah lived in the Fineview neighborhood in the municipality of Allegheny City that was absorbed by Pittsburgh in 1907.

"Dinner in the Grove"

Reunion of the 101st and 103rd Pennsylvania Volunteers 1904

The flag of the 101st Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers

The battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac

is recalled at the center bottom of the quilt.

Benjamin (and presumably Sarah) is buried in Union Dale Cemetery in Pittsburgh. They died within weeks of each other in early 1918.

See more about the quilt here:

http://www.sewickleyhistory.org/index.php/9-uncategorised/87-civil-war-narrative-quilt

Reproduction star by Becky Brown.

The star is a version of an eccentric or excentric print. Either spelling is correct. Americans spell it with two C's today. You'll see below excentric as an alternative.

A vintage excentric print, about 1880.

One extremely popular style of cylinder print featured fine geometric figures with jagged or wavy distortions---"a particular style of design known by the name of 'excentrics,' in the production of which England surpasses every other nation in the world," according to a proud printer testifying to the British Parliament in 1840.

Fine, wavy lines in a vintage quilt about 1830.

The style was so popular in the 1830s that the British Parliament heard testimony about the originality of eccentric prints in hearings concerning copyright infringements when the House of Commons was worried about continental mills stealing English design. It was generally the other way around, the printers admitted. The English stole from the French.

The Parliamentary report was illustrated with examples.

Eccentric prints were the exception. Calico printer John Brooks testified he'd been in the business for thirty years and while "spots had been seen since time immemorial," two eccentric prints were "the only real original patterns I recollect since I have been a calico printer." He mentioned one called Diorama created by accident when a parallel stripe creased in the roller, "producing a new and unexpected effect. " Rather than discarding the misprint, the enterprising mill owner was inspired to create a new fad for jagged stripes.

Two very popular variations called Hoyle's Wave (1822) and Lane's Net followed.

Lane's Net in a nine-patch about 1870

Variations on Lane's net from my collection.

The largest piece is 20th-century.

A lilac version from an 1870-1890 quilt

Vintage illustration of some eccentric prints.

A Parisian swatch book from 1825

shows an excentric print at the bottom here.

Eccentric prints, an English specialty, were probably based less on accident and more on technological advances in lathes and other metal tools. The word excentric means odd or erratic but it also refers to geometric ellipses and circles with centers at different points (as opposed to concentric circles.)

Toolmakers developed metal lathes with so-called excentric chucks that could create mechanical drawings of endless lines, first used to engrave intricate bank note backgrounds.

Illustration of "Fancy Turning" from about 1860

The English calico printers adapted the technology as well as the name.

Lane's Net was popular in madder-style shades.

Americans quilters continued to use eccentrics in their quilts through the early 20th century.

An eccentric excentric from about 1880

More eccentricity by Becky Brown.

Her repro print is a South African fabric

featuring stripes of different period excentrics.

Reproductions

One of Jeanne's many great repros with a Hoyle's Wave

Nancy Swanwick's repro block with an eccentric center.

Reproduction block by Becky Brown

They used the same recent print. Anyone remember the line?

From the Mill Book 1892 collection.

Two of Nancy Gere's

Kathy Hall for the Southcott Quilt, reproduction

of an 1808 quilt at the Winterthur Museum

Mary Koval for Palampore

And Mary's Cynthia

Here's an old reproduction print you may still have...

Jenny Zutphen's repro block includes the fabric Terry Thompson and I did for Moda

based on the document print below.

A variation of Hoyle's Wave

I found this fussy cut example of our repro in a hexie at the

Quilts in the Barn site.

What to do with your Stack of Stars?
Update the look by staggering them in a border.

Medallion by Kathy Ronsheimer

She turned each star block

into a rectangle by adding a strip of background.

Star over the Rockies by Lolly Platt using a

Mountain Vistas pattern by Judy Martin

I first noticed this contemporary use of staggered stars in a border by Judy Martin.

She and Marsha McCloskey included it in their 1995 book

Pieced Borders.

For our 6" stars you'd want to add a strip to

each star cut 6-1/2" x 2". The block now finishes to 6" x 7-1/2".

Rotate the rectangular blocks 180 degrees to get the dancing stars.

Stairway to the Stars Block of the Month designed by Winnie Fleming

Maureen Gore Brooks, Celtic Hearts

Turning your square star into

a rectangle could lead anywhere.

Another Judy Martin quilt

It's sort of like the excentric lathe.

Excentric prints, excentric quilts.

One More Thing About Eccentric Prints

Prints in a swatchbook from France about 1830

Combination excentric/serpentine stripes

The astounding popularity of excentric designs in the 1830s shows the importance of novelty to the burgeoning cotton printing business, which was becoming an economic force. By the 1840 Parliamentary hearings the members heard that the taste for excentrics "is like everything else in the trade, transient and temporary…The passion for it is over…The style was exhausted and the public required something new."

But excentric prints weren't the only strange prints. Printers often complained about the public taste for novelty (it seems to be a built in human need.) During the early decades of roller printing they created some truly novel and eccentric designs.

An odd print from an 1837 swatchbook.

The Powerhouse Museum has the swatches from this sample book online here:

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/electronicswatchbook/

Over on the left on the main page see if you can read the list of books and click on the 1837 button.

That book shows many eccentric prints (in the sense of odd or strange).

The search for novelty seemed to be driving the roller printing

industry at the time.

These are not the kind of prints likely to be reproduced.

The market would be minuscule--- you guys and me.

See another post about early excentrics:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2011/10/excentrics-in-nebraska.html

Read more about the British hearings on copyright and excentric prints here

https://books.google.com/books?id=p9vd3ZKq6EoC&pg=PA119&dq=Hoyle%27s+Wave&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tegOVeSFJ8ygNozAg4AK&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Hoyle's%20Wave&f=false

Confederate flag block in the center of an album sampler

made for Atwood Cluverius Walker,

date inscribed 1863

Also inscribed over the flag and the yellow flower:

"Be faithful to your flag and when the toils of war are over, may you repose peacefully beneath its folds. You friend Ellen Wright, April 6, 1863."

The Walker quilt is being shown at the Great Plains Art Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska though the end of June. It's the last venue for Homefront & Battlefield: Quilts & Context in the Civil War, an exhibit from the American Textile History Museum that "highlights a broad range of textile artifacts and other objects to explore the Civil War."
http://www.unl.edu/plains/gallery/exhibitions.shtml

Atwood Cluverius Walker (1838-1922) survived wounds and prison camp to return to his Virginia home Mount Elba in Walkerton. He married Bettie F. Toombs in 1870 and was survived by four children. His descendants care for the quilt today.

Army records describe his imprisonment and appearance:

"captured at Hatcher’s Run, Va. March 31, 1865, sent to Johnson’s Island from Washington, D. C. April 9, subscribed and swore allegiance to the United States at Johnson’s Island, Ohio, and released, June 17, 1865, 27 years old Farmer, resident of Walkerton, Va., born in Virginia, fair complexion, light hair, blue eyes, 5’ 10”

When you see the quilt in the cloth a pair of Broderie Perse

blocks with a hound dog print catch your attention.

Atwood Walker must have been a fan of dogs.

This photograph of Walker at a Confederate memorial is at the Virginia Civil War website, where scans of his papers are kept.

http://www.virginiacivilwar.org/legacy/documents.php

The catalog for the exhibit is also on sale at the Museum.

Reproduction star by Becky Brown with three neat stripe prints

Vintage star about 1875---three stripes

Stripes for figure and background, about 1880.

Subtle stripes make great period backgrounds for your stars.

Two neat stripes.

Reproduction star by Bettina Havig

The fabrics were often referred to as "neat stripe effects," as in the fashion note for wools below.

"desirable spring shades, especially old rose and wisteria...The cutting-up trade has taken large quantities of these shades in neat stripe effects of ladies' suits."

1916

1909

Men's ties in "pearl gray, green and red, helio, lilac,

Alice blue, old rose, magenta, catawba and coral in small, neat stripe patterns."

Reproduction by Bettina Havig

Neat stripes were part of the men's wear

look that was so popular in the 1890-1920 period.

Vintage star about 1910

Portrait in a fussy-cut striped dress.

about 1870-90

The neatest stripe I'd guess is just a

hard-edged, alternate dark and light.

The basic stripe of color on white was quite

popular in the 1870-1900 era.

Don't let the Nile green fool you into thinking the block is 1930s---mint green stripes were popular in the 1870s.

Fussy cut stripes,

Mother with children, maybe the 1870s

You need simple stripes in your repro stash whatever time period interests you.

Block from about 1820-1840

Stripe of dots in a quilt dated 1823

Block from about 1820-1840

Many stripes had pattern in them but

there was a hard-edged, rather neat quality to them.

Block from about 1840-1860

Look for neat stripes in all colors.

Reproduction star by Becky Brown with a neat stripe

of double pink

Block from about 1870-1890

Pinks and...

particularly madders, which were the rage in the 1870s.

Log cabin backing about 1870-1890

We can contrast the neat stripes to serpentine stripes

Quilt from about 1800-1830

Rainbow stripes,

Quilt from about 1820-1840

And border stripes.

Repro border stripe from my Civil War Homefront collection

Border stripes are larger scale than neat stripes.

Railroad Crossing repro quilt by Roseanne Smith with the red version

of the large stripe as the mitered border.

Reproduction by Bettina Havig

A neat stripe---or is it a chintz in a striped set?

Either way it's a good repro look.

The light background stripe has that excentric look

of a mechanical drawing. (See last week.)

You need all sizes of stripes.

Krissy's Antique Stars

A reproduction kit from Petra Prins's shop

http://www.petraprinspatchwork.com/c-2614629/quilt-kits-reproduction-fabrics/

Rainbow stripes, serpentine stripes and larger border stripes each had a limited heyday, but neat stripes are found throughout the century.

Neat stripes and California gold in a vintage block.

You know how careful we are at matching stripes.

Forget it!

Vintage star about 1880

Vintage star, about 1850

Reproductions

Ann in her Notes From the Quilt Lab blog showed her

reproduction (on the right) of a faded four patch.

Stripes aplenty.

Becky fussy-cut a star of triangles to get this neat effect.

See Bettina's version above

Becky says, "I love stripes, because of their endless design possibilities, so it was difficult to narrow it down."

A neat madder stripe I did in my 1862 Battle Hymn three years ago.

My latest Moda collection has a neat stripe called Frederick

Reproduction block By Becky Brown

Moda's Collection for a Cause: Community, in shops now.

Paula Barnes, Border Companions

Two by Nancy Gere

And two by MollyB in Victoria's Violets

Moda---the light stripe is woven, the dark printed.

What to Do with Your Stack of Star Blocks?

Frame each with a larger star.

6-inch star inside a 12-inch star

The star inside a star design is an old one, first published as Stars and Squares by the Ladies Art Company pattern company about 1890. Ruth Finley called it Rising Star in 1929.

It's #2167 in BlockBase. Below are the instructions for the outer star.

A-Cut 4 squares 3-1/2"

B-Cut 1 square 7-1/4"

Cut into 4 triangles with two cuts.

C-Cut 4 squares 3-7/8"

Cut each into 2 triangles with a single diagonal cut.

16 stars finishing to 12" will give you a 48" square quilt

This triple star also has a BlockBase number: #3993

You could just go on and on....

One More Thing About Stripes

Stripes have a deep cultural context, according to Michel Pastoureau, a French scholar with a background in medievalism. In his 2001 book The Devil’s Cloth: A History of Stripes and Striped Fabric he noted that stripes long held negative connotations in European culture as the identifying fabric of the outcast----prisoners, slaves and prostitutes.

A French Revolutionary in radical dress.

A woman in striped pants and a red liberty cap

Attitudes changed with the American and French Revolutions at the end of the eighteenth century, when stripes became an important symbol of the new societies. The first American flag, 13 red and white stripes, and France's Liberty cap, a striped knitted hat, symbolized the lowly, indicating a sense of fraternity and equality.

Note the striped liberty cap on the right side

of this Baltimore Album block

Stripes came to symbolize the avant-garde and moved up the social ladder to the world of the upper class always eager for novel design.

Fashion plate from the 1830s

Vertical stripes can be figure flattering---but that sleeve fashion.....

Here's a sneak peek at a neat stripe repro that will be

in my late-fall 2015 collection.

Sales reps will be showing Old Cambridge Pike to shop owners

next month.

Descendants of Caroline Boston

sent me pictures of this autograph quilt.

It's covered with names of veterans and their Civil War units but no date.

In the center square is their great-great grandmother's name...

"Caroline Boston Benton Barack"

Caroline Gerlach Boston and James Boston, perhaps in the 1890s

Caroline's husband's name is opposite hers in the center block. The fabric is all solids--whether cotton or wool or a combination of fibers we haven't determined, although they think it may be all cotton.

"Jas. Boston.

Co. H.53.Ill.I

Company F, 53rd Illinois Infantry"

The family has some clues to the meaning of this quilt. They are well aware that Caroline served as a Civil War nurse at St. Louis's Benton Barracks Hospital.

The Benton Barracks Hospital was the largest hospital in the west.

"Caroline Boston

U.S. Army

Nurse

Benton

Barracks

Hospital

Aged

88Y. 1M 3D."

Her nursing service was important enough that she is remembered as a U.S. Army Nurse on

her tombstone, erected after her death in 1922.

Could the quilt have been made during the Civil War and signed by patients at the hospital?

My estimate based on the style, the quilt pattern, the embroidery etc. is: No, it's not a mid-19th-century quilt but a late-19th or early-20th century quilt.

The claret-colored back is very much like the type you see on

crazy quilts after 1885 or so. Perhaps a polished cotton in a new

synthetic red shade.

The linear embroidery is a good clue to after 1880. If it were 1860

there would be cross-stitching or inking for the names.

A typical mid-19th century signature in ink handwriting

Quilt dated 1899 with linear embroidery.

The thread in the date has faded to white.

Embroidered lettering that traces handwriting is a post-1880 style.

Quilt dated 1896, similar solid colors, fabrics,

similar use of names and embroidery style.

Quilt made of wools and cottons dated 1912

My first guess was that it was made and presented to Caroline and James Boston close to 1900,

perhaps at a hospital reunion. The men's units come from a variety of places so it's not just an Illinois reunion or a Missouri reunion.

The family history corrects me. Caroline made it to recall her patients and her service. Her great-great grandson writes:

"Caroline Boston served as a nurse in Ward E at Benton Barracks. We are currently researching some of the names on the quilt and, so far, it seems likely that they may have been patients at Benton Barracks. Caroline possibly kept records of her patients in Ward E and later in life made this quilt as a family project. It was passed down from mother to daughter, etc.
The time frame from post 1880 – pre 1920 seems entirely plausible....Her family resided in Smith Center, Kansas, during this time."

More on Caroline Boston and the nurses at the Benton Barracks next week.

See another quilt related to a reunion at this post:

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2014/08/civil-war-union-veterans-fundraiser.html

Printed plaid reproduction block by Becky Brown

Printed plaid repro star on a woven gingham plaid

by Bettina Havig

Vintage top from 1840-1860

We don't often notice printed plaids because they are usually low drama.

Vintage top from 1840-1890.

With a Turkey red like that demanding attention

the blue printed plaid becomes background.

A similar repro print from Blue Hill

But you find plaids everywhere---

printed in the two blocks on the left, possibly woven

in the block on the right.

Vintage top from 1840-1860

Saw this on Inspired by Antique Quilts blog.

Vintage block from 1880-1900

Low-drama plaid prints, high drama sash.

Vintage quilt from 1840-1860

In the 1840s and '50s plaids rose from supporting roles to drama queens.

Printed plaids offered pattern that woven plaids never could.

Vintage top from the 1840s,

pictured in my Clues in the Calico

Vintage quilt from the 1840s.

From Barbara D. Schaffer's blog

Another vintage star with dramatic plaids

Vintage block

Star Points: Printed plaid with a floral in the empty spaces

Vintage top from 1840-1860

The idea of adding florals to a plaid might be considered

over-the-top. But 1840's fashionistas had to have them.

Mary Todd Lincoln in the mid-1840s dressed in silk plaid.

Pleats and tucks added to the over-all look.

Dress from the 1840s in the Tasha Tudor collection.

Dresses above and below are wool combination fabrics,

challis or delaine.

Don't you wish you'd been around in the 1840s

to see women wearing these dresses?

And don't worry that you'd look terrible in them.

The plaids emphasized a wide look that was considered

attractive. Plump was the goal.

The print above:

very much like the blue reproduction print from Terry Thompson

If you are a fan of Prussian blues you may have a good

collection of mid-19th-century printed plaids.

Cyndi at Busy Thimble posted this vintage star.

Prussian blue's printing attributes seem to have

encouraged some wild and wonderful designs.

Another aspect of the plaid fad: Prints set in a grid or plaid format.

Back of a vintage quilt from 1840-1900

A madder-style plaid in a plaid

Vintage piece from 1840-1860

Notice this brown print was once purple. See the seam allowance at the bottom.

Vintage plaid and floral from 1840-1880

Reproductions

Detail: Wild Goose Chase reproduction by

Barbara D. Schaffer. The setting triangles

echo that high-drama Prussian blue style.

Jeanne's reproduction for double pinks

Check your collection of Prussian blues for printed plaids.

And your madders and pinks.

Reproduction star by Becky Brown

Diagonal plaids are a look you can't with woven plaids.

My Civil War Homefront:

Document print on the left and repro right.

Jo Morton Stafford County

Nancy Gere often includes a printed plaid

in her collections.

Alice Putnam by Nancy Gere

Don't forget figures set in a plaid-like grid.

From my Civil War Jubilee, a plaid grid.

What To Do with Your Stack of Stars?

Add to the plaid look with a contrasting sashing.

Reproduction quilt by Barbara D. Schaffer

We can only envy her stash (and her eye!)

Quilt dated 1841-1842

After 1840 one sees many blocks set on point with contrasting sashing strips. These quilts pictured in the Quilt Index show how the interest in diagonal plaids influenced the look of quilts from prints to set.

Last week I showed stars set with sashing that faded into the background.

Quilt dated 1864-65 North Carolina project

Quilters also loved contrasting sashing.

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

Massachusetts project

Notice they don't use cornerstones in the grid.

Different colored squares in

the intersections would give you a different effect.

One More Thing About Plaids

A set of Scots novels bound in plaid fabrics

Plaids are sometimes described as Scotch Plaids or Tartans, a reference to romantic ideas of Scotland's traditional clothing.

Queen Victoria in 1854 in a woven plaid shawl.

Royal Collection Trust.

The fashion for plaid owed much to the British royal family and to Sir Walter Scott's novels like Waverly and The Lady in the Lake.

Plaids still signify brave and hearty men.

Just do a digital search for "I'm a Lumberjack."

We'll discuss woven plaids in a few weeks.

Read more at these blog posts:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2009/06/plaid-fad.html

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2009/12/document-reproduction-printed-plaid.html

See pages 72-75 of my America's Printed Fabric for a discussion of printed plaids.

Reproduction star by Bettina Havig

Reproduction star by Becky Brown

We're going back in time to the earliest American patchwork, so we will be spending the summer months discussing fabrics found in quilts before the 1840s.

Antique star block, collection of Old Sturbridge Village

Early 19th century

The most distinctive of the early prints are chintzes, a style defined in 1663 by English diarist Samuel Pepys. He recorded a shopping trip to buy his wife "a chintz, that is, a painted Indian calico, for to line her study."

Detail of the Copp Quilt about 1800,

Collection of the Smithsonian Institution

Dark-ground chintz squares alternate with star blocks of chintz scraps.

To Frances Trollope, an Englishwoman traveling in America in 1828, chintz meant "the material of a curtain" and the definition remains the same. Chintz generally means a cotton furnishing fabric, used for drapes, slipcovers and upholstery.

White-ground chintz with border print from a garment, 18th century

The figures in the earliest prints are block-printed and hand-painted. This

is the type of Indian chintz that became fashionable with Europeans

when cotton became a pillar of world trade.

We'll begin with white-ground chintzes, which were used for furnishing fabrics but also quite popular for clothing in the 18th- and early-19th-centuries.

Madame Pompadour by François-Hubert Drouai,

1763-4

The mistress of the King of France

wears an elaborate cotton dress to do her needlework.

Detail of Madame's dress.

Drouai could paint!

Early chintz imports were wood-block printed to Indian taste with light figures on dark-colored backgrounds, a remarkable novelty to Europeans. Novelty soon wore off, however, and sales dropped. By the mid-1600s English middlemen began influencing Indian design by sending sample patterns and requesting changes in traditional figures and coloring. Letters in trading company records advised artists to substitute white backgrounds for "sad red grounds"

Gown from Colonial Williamsburg collection, 1780

Cotton print worn over quilted silk petticoat

The popularity of imported cotton prints alarmed established producers of silk and wools who demanded trade protection. In 1700 Parliament prohibited the English from importing and wearing foreign prints. French chintz lovers fared no better with bans on French and foreign chintzes in effect from 1686 to 1759, laws flouted by the fashionable.

The Netherlands was one of the few European countries permitting free trade in chintzes.

Man's garments in large-scale chintzes

Collection: Centraal Museum, Utrecht, The Netherlands

The Dutch wore amazing garments that were illegal in other countries.

Woman's jacket

Collection of the Rijksmuseum, the Netherlands

Antique star quilt alternating with a nine-patch.

Years ago Ladies Circle Patchwork Quilts

published this fabulous quilt with the caption

that it was from Edisto Island, South Carolina.

Detail of Hephzibah Jenkins Townsend's small quilt.

Collection of the Smithsonian Institution.

Hephzibah made this quilt on Edisto Island too. White ground chintz seems to have been a favorite with Carolina quilters.

See a detail here:
http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_556509

Quilt from the Lee Family of Charleston,

about 1830

Charleston Museum

See more about his South Carolina quilt in the collection of the Charleston Museum at this post

http://charlestonmuseum.tumblr.com/post/47536194786

Reproductions

Reproduction star by Becky Brown.

Look for large scale, multi-colored florals.

Above, a vintage dress with a similar reproduction.

Dawn at Collector with a Needle used Dutch chintz repros

from Den Haan

Den Haan's Dutch prints

Dutch Delight by Maureen Crawford

I bet she used the Dutch repros.

Mary Koval with her current Palampore collection

Two by Nancy Gere

Catherine's Courtyard by Betsy Chutchian
White-ground and dark-ground chintzes

Kathy Hall's Southcott quilt panel has

a white ground chintz with a Chinoiserie design,

just like the original quilt at the Winterthur Museum

I occasionally reproduce these early 19th century chintzes.

Above and below is a print from Lately Arrived from London

At top the document print; the brighter is the repro.

I think Becky used this print in her star at the top of the page.

It looks like Jan Hutchinson used the tan version for the border on this medallion.

http://thesecretlifeofmrsmeatloaf.blogspot.com/2012/09/thank-you-madame-president.html

Here's a stripe Terry Thompson and I did

for Moda in a long-ago line named Coral Gardens.

A current repro from French General

Better buy the bolt!

Collections for a Cause: Love

India Chintz from Windham

You may have some of this Kaye England print from

Enduring Grace

Georgann Eglinski's center star from her reproduction quilt

called Thank You, Robert Bishop!

Georgann used many white-ground chintzes.

She gave the quilt that name because she found

the original in a book by Robert Bishop.

And don't forget to look at decorator fabrics. You'll find

a lot of accurate chintz repros in these heavier furnishing materials.

If the green seems too bright, cut around it.

What to do with your Stack of Stars?

Make a chintz medallion.

Maryland, Math and A Magnifying Glass by Sylvia Jennings Galbraith

Sylvia interpreted an early Maryland quilt for an AQSG Quilt Study of

quilts made before 1840.

Lori Smith's pattern Reminiscence

Mariann Simmons for the Virginia Quilt Museum

Di Ford, Phebe reproduction

Bobbi Finley and Carol Gilham Jones

One More Thing About Chintz

Glazed neat stripe in an early-19th-century British hexagon

We may think of chintz as a glazed fabric because we can buy plain chintz, a shiny cotton with no print at all. Traditionally chintz was finished with a glaze or not. In the past the surfaces were polished with wax, resin or starch, treatment that added weight, stiffness and elegance. The shine also repelled stains and dirt, but was liable to wash away.

Glazed chintz stripe for furnishings, end of the 20th century

Mills use other chemicals to obtain a shiny surface today.

Don't focus on the glaze. Chintz is best defined as a large-scale furnishing print.

Late-18th-century chintz

Read more about white-ground chintzes at this post:
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2011/08/every-early-repro-collection-needs.html
And pages 10-12 in America's Printed Fabrics deal with chintzes.

Enslaved women about 1861, detail.

Photo from the Robin Stanford collection, Library of Congress

The Library of Congress has recently acquired a collection of Civil War photos from collector Robin G. Stanford of Houston. The new Stanford Collection includes 540 images, many of which are rare stereograph photos showing the world of the slaves. The women above in their cotton print skirts have been cropped out of the corner of one photo picturing cotton workers.

Detail of another photo of children

As of April 4th, 77 of the photos have been scanned and are available at this webpage:

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=robin+stanford+collection&st=gallery

More scans will be available as work continues on the project.

"'I’m delighted that the Library of Congress has agreed to acquire my collection," said Stanford. "I feel that the Library is the perfect home for the images, an ultra-safe and secure place where they will be fully accessible, not only now, but for future generations to come.'"

A view of Charleston during the war

The good news is that these photos will add immeasurably to our visual memory of the era.

The bad news is that the Washington Post story announcing the purchase/gift is ridiculously sexist.

The headline:

"Grandmother’s trove of Civil War photos goes to Library of Congress"

The news story goes on to tells us "A Houston housewife, who quietly collected rare Civil War images for 50 years, sold more than 500 early photographs to the Library of Congress."

Until you read the last paragraph here you didn't know that Robin G. Stanford is a woman, and an older woman, a self-proclaimed "old lady." This is not important. What is important that she was a shrewd and knowledgeable collector.

To some degree we can fault reporter Michael E. Ruane for this old-fashioned, aw-shucks spin on the story. He included the line :

"On Friday, Stanford, wearing a blue cardigan sweater, black necklace and gold earrings, visited the library to show some of her pictures."

More guilt can be apportioned to the headline writer who characterized Stanford as a grandmother rather than an important collector. The caption writer who describes her as a Houston housewife should share in the blame. Where the heck was the editor?

Well, don't get me started but the next time I read a story about Mitt Romney in the Washington Post I want it headlined "Grandfather Gives Republicans Advice" and I want a line about what he's wearing.

I'll remind the Post:

Equal treatment is all we women want.

Mitt Romney, grandfather, was wearing a blue oxford cloth shirt

and a pair of blue jeans

when photographed with his family.

The Good News

Read a press release from the Library of Congress, which includes an interview with Sanford by clicking here:

http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2015/15-051.html

The Bad News

Read the Washington Post article here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-grandmothers-trove-of-civil-war-photos-goes-to-the-library-of-congress/2015/03/28/19e41776-d1a3-11e4-8fce-3941fc548f1c_story.html

Caroline H. Gerlach Boston (1833 -1922)

Last week I did a post on this Memorial quilt, which has been passed

from mother to daughter over five generations of Caroline Boston's family.

Caroline was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, to German immigrants David C. Gerlach and Sabella Wilhelmina Uber. The family moved to Illinois during her childhood. In 1854 she married James Boston in Geneva, Illinois. James, born in Ohio, had lived in Indiana before moving west to Illinois.

Caroline and James's fourth boy, Ellsworth Boston, was born on July 1, 1861, a little over a month after the country was stunned by the death of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, shot while removing a Confederate flag waving over Alexandria, Virginia.

Death of Col. Ellsworth, a Currier & Ives print.

The martyr to the Union cause is literally larger than life here.

The family's commemoration of the first Union hero of the Civil War tells us something about the Bostons' loyalties.

Caroline embroidered husband James's name and company in the

center of her quilt.

From James's obituary:

"In January 1862, the deceased answered the call of his country, and enlisted in company F, 53rd Illinois volunteers, and saw some extremely hard fighting and many hardships. He was badly wounded in the battle of Hatchie."

The Battle of Hatchie River, also called Mattamora or Davis Bridge, took place in Tennessee and Mississippi on October 5, 1862. James, shot in the abdomen by a musket ball, was initially treated in makeshift hospitals in the town of Bolivar, Tennessee, then transferred to the U.S. General Hospital at St. Louis's Benton Barracks.

Wisconsin troops in front of the Benton Barracks,

the largest hospital in the west during the Civil War.

"All through that summer (1863) the hospitals of St. Louis were crowded to overflowing. From one thousand to fifteen hundred were lying in Benton Barracks alone." Women's Work in the Civil War, 1867

During his hospitalization Caroline applied to be a nurse. She left the boys with relatives and moved to St. Louis.

"Men, wounded in every conceivable manner, were frequently arriving from the battle-fields [an experience that] so many brave women, fresh from the quiet and happy scenes of their peaceful homes, have been willing to subject themselves for the sake of humanity."

The hospital building was built as an open amphitheater, which in the spring of 1863 had been "enclosed; provided with windows, floored, partitioned, divided into wards, thoroughly whitewashed, furnished with iron bedsteads and good beds, and converted into one of the largest, most thoroughly ventilated and best hospitals in the United States, capable of accommodating two thousand five hundred patients.”

A sunny view of a ward in Memphis

James's recovery was slow. After a few months he was classified as unfit for military service and apparently volunteered to join the Invalid Corps, serving at the Barracks Hospital with his wife.

Emily Elizabeth Parsons (1824-1880)

Caroline's supervisor was Emily Parsons, Superintendent of Female Nurses, who'd trained as a nurse at the beginning of the war. Parson's letters to her mother were published in 1880 as Memoir of Emily Elizabeth Parsons.

After Vicksburg in the summer of 1863:

"The amount of wounded is already very great, by and by they will be coming up the river....I have to keep careful watch over every one of the nurses, as I am responsible for them."

Parsons's letters give us a glimpse of the Bostons' life at the hospital, although she didn't mention either by name.

"A new nurse came to-day, a lady about forty.

Her husband is off engineering, or something like it,

and she wanted to do something for the soldiers...."

After the bloody year of 1863, the war in the west quieted enough that the Benton Barracks changed uses, becoming a refuge for escaped slaves, free blacks and convalescent African-American troops.

Photograph by Enoch Long

Liljenquist Collection at the Library of Congress

Another glimpse of life at the Benton Barracks

is provided by a series of portraits of men

photographed in a painted backdrop there.

Same backdrop

These pictures of convalescing soldiers must have reassured

families back home.

The painting behind the unknown soldier is signed "Evans Artist."

The backdrop is similar; the photo is flipped over.

James Boston (1834-1924) after the War

wearing his uniform and a GAR veteran's ribbon.

War records describe him as

5’ 11 ½” tall with gray eyes and dark hair

In April, 1864, the Bostons were discharged from their hospital duties. A few months later they homesteaded land in Pawnee County, Nebraska, where their first daughter Hattie was born that summer.

Read Emily Parsons's Memoir of nursing life here:

https://archive.org/details/memoirofemilyeli00parsiala

Stationery from the Benton Barracks

If you think you might have an ancestor on Caroline's quilt leave a comment with his name (Caroline's is the only female name on her quilt) and her family will check for you.

Reproduction block by Becky Brown,

a white chintz contrasting with a blotch-ground chintz for the background.

Notice the white lines around the florals in the background.

These signs of poor print registration are often referred to as halos.

Early-19th-century British quilt with

a blotch-ground red chintz next to a classic Polka dot

My collection of vintage blotch ground chintzes from America's Printed Fabrics

Chintzes have been so popular that there are many styles within the category. Last week I showed white-ground chintzes.

Vintage quilt detail, early 19th-century

White-ground chintzes were the rage in the 18th-century but towards 1800 taste changed.

Dark-ground chintzes became a fashion item for quilts and clothing

Vintage wholecloth quilt of a dark-ground pheasant print

Brown chintz dress, an 18th-century round gown, from Historic Deerfield

Note the blue check in the sleeve lining.

See a post on dark-ground chintz fashion by Hallie Larkin here:

http://thegoldenscissors.blogspot.com/2012/08/brown-gown-take-2-cotton.html

Printers had several methods for creating the dark ground chintzes. Madder printing with different mordants was one way to do it.

Vintage madder-printed pheasant and palm tree print

The registration is good, which means the

figures fit nicely into the background with

few gaps or overlap. That's one of the advantages to madder dyes.

Reproduction star by Bettina Havig

But if you wanted lots of color in the chintzes (and who didn't?) you could change a white-ground chintz to a dark ground chintz just by adding background color. The printers used block technology to add the backgrounds. I've seen references to a wood block with a felt shape glued onto it that was called a blotch.

Melbourne, Australia, newspaper ad for

drab ground, white ground and blotch ground chintzes in 1855.

"Drab" ground refers to quercitron-dyed prints, which

we'll discuss in July.

Blotch now has several meanings, most commonly an irregular shape. Printers use the word differently now too but in the past blotch as a textile term meant an added background color.

Dyers could add any color they could print with the blotch technology so you often see the same chintz with different backgrounds, what we call different colorways.

Added tan grounds were often called tea ground.

Registration in blotch-ground prints was poor, an obvious flaw that no one seemed to mind.

The blotch block left huge halos around the flowers and leaves.

Tea-ground blotch chintzes are often found in early quilts

Detail of a tea-ground chintz star from the

Boston Museum of Fine Arts

Added red ground was another option

More overlap than halos in this red version of

the pheasant and palm tree print.

Vintage red chintz, technically sub-par.

There's too much going on here for our taste.

A reproduction would NEVER sell.

Medium blue grounds were fashionable in the early 19th century.

(And look good today too.)

The glaze is still on this vintage piece.

You could even buy an outrageous shade of yellow

Reproductions

Becky looked through her stash for registration errors to give the traditional

blotch-ground chintz look.

2 Stars by Becky

She'd had this piece of glazed purple chintz for years.

Here a little hint of halo in the blue.

Reproduction star by Bettina Havig

Sometimes you have to compromise and just go

for a well-registered colored ground. It's the color and the fabric's

figures and scale that are most important.

A red ground chintz with lovely geranium leaves

from the panel for Kathy Hall's Southcott quilt.

The print is in the corners of the original dated 1808

in the Winterthur's collection.

A similar geranium with a red ground in a vintage quilt from the collection of Old Sturbridge Village

A repro tea-ground by Pat Nickols

Again, a hint of halo

Chintz florals fit nicely into their backgrounds today with perfect registration due to contemporary technology. What you are looking for is multi-color florals deliberately printed with gaps and halos.

Savannah by Fons and Porter

I'm hoping you have some of these old reproduction prints in your scraps.The imitation blotch-ground prints are hard to find because there is little cross-over market for them. You must appreciate the look to want to buy a badly registered print.

Jo Morton's Bird Chintz

You may not care for the print as a whole but you'll find that a few

scraps patched into a block gives an authentic early look.

Early Stars, reproduction by Barbara Schaffer

Here's a beautiful reproduction from Nancy Gere she

calls Valley Forge. Just enough halo and tinted tan

to make it a cross-over print, rather than just for repro lovers.

Sawtooth Strip by Barbara Brackman

I found the brown ground chintz for the alternate strips in this reproduction of the 1840s look at a home decorating store. I bought the bolt on sale. They were glad to see it go.

What to Do with Your Stack of Stars?

Alternate with broderie Perse blocks.

Block dated 1853

Broderie Perse is also called Cut-Out Chintz applique.

I couldn't find any photos of period star quilts alternating with chintz cut out floras.

But isn't it a good idea? I did a digital mockup. For 6" finished alternate blocks your cut-out-chintz applique will have to be fairly simple.

Above and below: two simple cut-out chintz motifs

from about 1800-1840.

Antique red ground chintz with halos

The old chintz with its bad registration was perfect for broderie Perse.

The halos meant you could applique a red chintz or a tan chintz to a white background and the tan wouldn't show.

Vintage broderie Perse

A heavy buttonhole stitch also hid the colored botch grounds.

One More Thing About Blotch-Ground Prints

Vintage hat box covered in the tea-ground version of

the pheasant and palm tree

The date on these imported blotch-ground chintzes in the United States seems to be about 1820-1840.

Chintz medallion quilt

Gift of Sandra Dallas to the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum

Details show the variety of blotch-ground chintzes.

They were available in abundance when international trade opened up after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. We find so many surviving examples that textile historians guess they are among the British prints "dumped" after the war. Americans tended to blame the British for undermining the domestic printing industry with shiploads of prints, but Britain may have been glad to get rid of them because they'd been designed for the American market. You just don't see the abundance of them in English quilts that you do in American.

Although this detail of the very English Jane Austen quilt

at Chawton shows scraps that look to

be cut from brown, tea, and blue-ground chintzes.

1862 Crib Quilt: Questions

Stars in a Time Warp 15: Woven Plaids

1862 Crib Quilt: Could it actually be 1862?

Stars in a Time Warp 16: Paisleys

1862 Crib Quilt: D'OH!

Stars in a Time Warp 17: Conversation Prints

Varina Davis's Butterfly Quilt

Stars in a Time Warp 18: California Gold

Varina Davis's Butterfly Quilt Part II

Stars in a Time Warp 19: Serpentine Stripes

Sewickley Valley Historical Society's GAR Quilt

Stars in a Time Warp 20: Excentric Prints

Confederate Album in Homefront & Battlefield

Stars in a Time Warp 21: Neat Stripes

Quilt Recalling the Benton Barracks Hospital in St. Louis

Stars in a Time Warp 13: Printed Plaids

Stars in a Time Warp 22: White Ground Chintzes

Library of Congress Acquires CW Photo Collection: Good News & Bad

James and Caroline Boston's Civil War

Stars in a Time Warp 23: Blotch-Ground Chintzes