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Celebrity Quilts
Signatures of Alexander Humboldt, Henry W. Longfellow and Ralph Waldo Emersonin a silk quilt by Adeline Harris Sears (1839–1931)Metropolitan Museum of...
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Southern Spin: Triplets & Cousins
Attributed to Christina Hays Malcom in Grant County, Indiana. Dated in the quilting May 6, 1873.Collection of the Helen F. Spencer Museum of ArtUniversity of KansasOver the years I've volunteered at...
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Southern Spin: Cousins 2
Yesterday we looked at Christina Hays Malcom's 1873 quiltfrom the collection of the Spencer Museum of Art.The design has a few characteristics.Perhaps the most important is the spinning pinwheelwith...
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Applique Puzzlers
So how old is this quilt?Classic applique, chrome orange still vibrant but the green is fading.Dating Guidelines: Applique 1840-1900Chrome orange not much help 1820-1920.Fading green probably from a...
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Ethnicity and Quilt Style 1
Girls and a string quilt about 1910Itinerant Southern photographers often used patchwork forbackdrops when they photographed their subjects outdoors.Quilt by unknown maker, Corrine Riley...
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Ethnicity & Quilt Style 2
Woman and a string quilt variation, about 1910.Yesterday I posted four string quilts from the Michigan project with the question: Can you tell the maker's ancestry by her style? Are the collectors...
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Love of Quilting March, April 2020
I've been writing a series of articles for the magazine Love of Quilting about recent quilt history to celebrate their 20th anniversary. In the March/April issue I have a short article comparing trends...
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Bolt Labels
Bolt label from Cocheco Mills showing Grecian womanwith a bolt of cloth, 1866. Her friend seems to be the designer.Collection of Historic New EnglandBolt labels were paper records fixed to fabric...
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Newspaper Friendship Quilt Exchanges
Mrs. Clara Stewart, San Francisco, 1925A valuable set of blocks recently sold in an online auction.How valuable is a set of badly embroidered friendship blocks?Mrs. Florence Weber, Kansas City...
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The Quilts in Little Women
Here's Laura Dern playing Marmee in the recent Little Women.Looks good for the early 1860s in Massachusetts, a period woven coverlet in indigo and madder,painted walls, a theorem for decoration. Those...
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Quilts Dated 1891
For many years I've been saving photos of quilts with the date actually on them. I figured you could analyze style trends in a sort of timeline. I've spent a lot of time analyzing the years before 1860...
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Past Perfect: Kim McLean
Autumn Leaves by Kim McLeanThis month's Past Perfect quiltmaker is Kim McLean, chromatic queen,who's had great influence on the look of 21st-century quilts.Kim drew her pattern from a quilt by...
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1894 ---Continuing Patchwork Trends
I've been sorting my files of quilts dated in the 1890s.There is no need to look at each year as the trends noted in 1891 continued.Here are the quilts inscribed 1894.See this...
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Memorial Quilt
In looking at late-19th century quilt style I came across thiswool embroidered top with a heartfelt inscription."Quilt made of dress pieces of MothersElisabeth R. MowldsPontiacIllinois""Elisabeth Rose...
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Margaret Hauser Marion's Quilt
Unknown pattern, quilt by Margaret Elizabeth Hauser Marion (1827-1914)Shoals, Surry County, North Carolina.When Margaret Marion's granddaughter brought this quilt for the North Carolina project to...
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Ladder Back Chairs
These illustrations from the first half of the 20th century amuse me no end in colonial silliness. We have a woman in old-fashioned dress holding a thoroughly modern version of a crazy quilt.The whole...
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Leila Utter's Dressed Pictures
Dressed pictures: free-standing paper dolls attached to a crazy quilt...attributed to Leila (or Lelia) O. Johnson Utter (1853-1931)Dated 1898 in the lower right cornerThe early name for these raised...
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Washington Prints
Green calicoes are hard to date but here's a classic star to help us out. It's signed "Clara 1906," maybe a little later than I'd have guessed although one observation is, "The pinker the quilt the...
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Quilt Style: Mad About Madder
Quilt in madder colors about 1860-1880Last post was about Washington prints and they did madders too.Bolt Label for Washington prints"Full Madder Colors"Madder is a vegetable dye that must be mordanted...
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Visiting the 1876 Centennial Fair
Quilt made of souvenir textiles from the Centennial celebrationWhat we'd call re-enactors showing old time crafts in costumeat the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. The woman playingCat's...
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