Linsey---Civil War Souvenirs

At a 1908 fair in Lexington, Mississippi, locals displayed their heirlooms including a "Quilt, pieced after the [Civil] war, of goods woven at home during the war, loaned by Miss Sue Young."

The tale is consistent with the theory that many of the homespun and home woven quilts pieced of jeans cloth, hickory cloth and linsey were made after the war to preserve war mementos such as homespun.

Home woven fabrics of wools and wool/cotton or wool/linen mixes are hard to date. A plaid in brown and indigo would look the same in 1770 or 1870. Blue jeans cloth like the triangles in the block above----you can imagine how hard a swatch would be to date.

So we have to rely on other clues for dating---such

as style and quilting.

The fan quilting design of concentric quarter circles is

a good clue to a date after 1870.

Flying Geese of wools and mixed fabrics from the Tennessee project

& the Quilt Index.

Extremely hard to date. Diagonal line quilting no help.

And the simple patchwork---often nine patches--- is no help either.

??? from the Michigan project.

By Elsie Winchester, Haywood County, North Carolina.

NC Project

Minerva Ogle's quilt from the Tennessee project 

offers a little assistance in the pattern of rectangles,

a popular pattern about 1910. Fan quilting---post Civil War.

Read more about linsey in an early war here: