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Kelmscott Plaid with Ebony Suite
 Kelmscott Plaid40" x 40"  9-1/2" Finished blocksSimple piecing and cutting using the neutrals of my Ebony Suite, latest William Morris reproduction line from Moda.Making the most of the range of grays...
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Anglo-Saxon Quilts#1: Manifest Destiny
National Museum of American Historyhttps://www.si.edu/object/1843-1845-pink-phillipss-lily-album-quilt%3Anmah_556525Album quilt with blocks dated 1843-1845 by family and friends in Maryland, once the...
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Anglo-Saxon Quilts #2: The Mexican War
Baltimore, St. Louis Art Museum CollectionQuilt dated 1848, the year the United States & Mexico signed a treaty to formalize annexation of southwestern land from Texas to California.George...
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Anglo-Saxon Quilts #3: The "American Quilt"
  British Quilters’ Guild CollectionDetail, silk patchwork quilt dated 1718 found in Aldbourne, England in Wiltshire, about 75 miles west of London, showing English patchwork tradition,quite familiar...
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Samantha at the World's Fair in 1893
Samantha and husband Josiah Allen at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Next year we are going to piece a Block-of-the-Month based on women journalists who covered the Civil War and I've been...
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Octagonal Star Block--Or Not
 Quilt that looks to be 1940-1960Unusual pattern in that the star is in an octagonal block, which alternates with a small square. Similar to Eveline Foland's pattern for an octagonal pillow in the...
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Baltimore Soldier Memorial Blocks
A new pattern based on vintage Baltimore blocksThe Mexican War of the 1840s rang many chords in Baltimore. The move to increase slave-holding Southern territory by annexing Mexican land west of...
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Freedom's Friends Finishes
 Sharon A. BennetAppliqued by Georgann Eglinski, Quilted by Becky Collis.Every year I design two Block-of-the-Month patterns, one pieced and one appliqued, on my blog Civil War Quilts. Two years ago we...
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Wreath of Roses:1854 Pattern Name
 Wreath of Roses by Carrie Hall, circa 1930, Spencer Museum of ArtPeople love to know the names of quilt patterns, a question I'm often asked. Mostly, I answer the fancy names are of fairly recent...
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Anne Burton Sykes's Dress Diary
 I've been reading several fashion/textile history books lately, the most recent being Kate Strasdin's The Dress Diary: Secrets from a Victorian Woman's Wardrobe (American Title.) Different marketing...
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Judy Niemeyer's Patterns
 Sand Devils Pattern Judy Niemeyerhttps://www.quiltworx.com/I've been working on my Computer Assisted Drawing skills. I use Photoshop. I'm impressed with the CAD skills of others and have been looking...
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Temperance Notes
 Rochester Historical Society Collection. Gift of Mary & Joe Koval.Fundraiser by members of the Rochester Independent Order of Good Templars,a temperance organization, about...
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The Moses Sisters' Gift to Cuesta Benberry
 In the Cuesta Benberry collection at Michigan State University isthis traditional looking applique quilt made by Lena and Olivia Mosesas a birthday gift for her in 1975.Cuesta's notes:"Made by the...
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Indigo Blue Resist #1: Florence Harvey Pettit's View
 About 25 years ago premiere textile dealer Titi Halle of Cora Ginsburg, Inc. published a pretty little catalog of their inventory...Featuring this double-sided whole cloth coverlet with cut-out...
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Indigo Resist #2: "How Fools Rush In"
From a Skinner auction a few years ago.During the 1950s, New York's Cooper Union/Cooper-Hewitt Museum textile staff & volunteers spent time studying these early indigo resist prints, considering...
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Indigo Resist #3: Testing Hypotheses
Smithsonian Collection CaptionThe geographic source for these early indigo resist prints and the bedcovers made from them is a good topic for discussing hypotheses and their proofs. Over the past 100...
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Indigo Resist #4: Printed in England?
 In her 2014 update of Florence Montgomery's catalog of Winterthur Museum textiles curator Linda Eaton showed this pheasant and floral resist-style fabric, indicating that the cotton (with a bit of...
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Indigo Resist #5: Current Scholarship on Sources
 International Quilt Museum Wholecloth bedcover of indigo pomegranate print with a later pieced border.Caption from their 2013 exhibit Indigo Gives America the...
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Virginia Spread With a Dubious Attribution
 Smithsonian Collection 85" x 100"https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/nmah_556586The National Museum of American History owns a large quilt top (a bound summer spread) with the donor attribution...
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Real Clothes, Real Lives
 Five Wrappers, c. 1895, made from the everyday fabrics we see in quilts at the time.Been reading another fairly recently published textile history book: Real Clothes, Real Lives: 200 Years of What...
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