Quilt 1812: War & Piecing

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Bird Prints: Antiques

Pheasants, grouse and other gamebirds were the rage in chintz in the early 19th century as in this multicolored print, probably done in a combination of roller printing with wood block additions of the brown background and the blues. There once might have been a yellow printed over some of the blues to make green leaves.

The birds's long tails are often echoed in palm fronds in the trees. Accuracy in depicting birds, trees and ecosystems was not a priority. English pheasants in tropical forests were common. This print looks to have a block-printed ground in a plum or chocolate color with the usual roller printed detail in madder reds.

Blue added---again there might have once been a yellow now faded away.

Jeremy Adamson in the Calico and Chintz catalog attributes the print above to "ca 1825-35," but for the style as a whole we use a broader date of 1810-1835.

Textile snobs (at the time and later) dismissed many of the bird chintzes with words like "dumped," "flooded" and "inferior." The mills rushing to produce the popular designs cobbled together some imagery, flooded the market and dumped the yardage on their overseas trading partners, who were undboutedly thrilled to get them. One cannot deny the gracelessness in some of prints.

A strip quilt that shows the short repeat on these English prints, indicating they are roller prints rather than the larger repeats one would see in plate prints. Note the repeat from the end of the bird's tail to the end of the next bird's tail.

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/10014411?rpp=40&pg=1&ft=*&what=Quilts&pos=13

See another bird print from 1816 in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum here:

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O34159/furnishing-demy-chintz/

Enjoy this tree of life chintz quilt growing in a forest of tiny palm trees in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art by clicking here:

http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/59060.html?mulR=28

Similar trees in a quilt dated 1833 in the collection of the Charleston Museum of Art:

http://www.charlestonmuseum.org/mobile/textilesgallery.html#label1-11

Check out their online exhibit of "Botanical Quilts" here:

http://www.charlestonmuseum.org/mobile/textilesgallery.html#page1

Tails went to dramatic lengths

See this quilt (#2007.034.0001) in the collection of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum by clicking here:

http://cdn.firespring.com/images/343f4330-187d-47fa-acb5-1d5b96a82761.jpg

And see a similar English quilt in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum by clicking here
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O165071/bed-cover/

There has been some discussion that English quilters did not use these prints but several English quilts survive with yardage and patches.

including this rather palm-like tree in the Austen family quilt.

And this antique in the collection of a very lucky blogger here:

http://prickyourfinger.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-bedspread.html

Here's a later print: Exotic birds remain popular in chintzes and toiles for decorating.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

6 Sarah Smith Emery: Smuggling English Cottons

A View of Newburyport in 1835

Sarah Emery (1787-1879) of Newburyport, Massachusetts, had been married a little over a year when the war began. Her husband owned a tavern---combination hotel, restaurant and bar in the town on the Merrimack River.

Few in that area with an economy based on international shipping profited during the war or the earlier embargoes, but David Emery’s tavern prospered once the war began. High unemployment allowed customers more time and more reason to drink. Most important--- the tavern was situated on a road used by smugglers.

A nostalgic look at "the carrying trade," as roads replaced waterways.

“We could not have engaged in a more lucrative business,“ she wrote in her memoirs. “British manufacturers having quantities of goods upon their hands, ran cargo after cargo into their eastern provinces [in Canada], thence they were passed across the border and taken South [to Boston] by ox teams; as our accommodations were excellent, the teamsters made ‘Emery's tavern’ their headquarters.”

She recalled a steady stream of drovers throughout the War.

“At sunset I have often counted a dozen or fifteen drawn up by the sidewalk, opposite the long barn, their motley coverings of patchwork quilts, coverlets etc., presenting a gypsy-like, semi-barbarous appearance.” Under the quilts covering the ox-carts were the luxuries New Englanders were not producing. Sarah listed them: flour, sugar and molasses, gloves, muslins, laces, ribbons, crockery and glass.

British china in America

“All imported goods commanded an exorbitant price. Flour rose to fifteen and eighteen dollars per barrel, brown sugar was twenty-five cents a pound…. I paid a dollar a yard for calico.” She remembered one shipment in particular, a load of cotton prints and shawls. Soon the young Emerys were smugglers themselves.

A Massachusetts tavern keeper could hope to look as fashionable

as this French woman in a white paisley shawl with a high-colored border---

a painting from 1810 by Francois Henri Mullard

“The shawls were quite pretty, having white or buff centres and high-colored borders; they sold for four dollars apiece. I took calico for a dress and a shawl; two other shawls were sold in the house; the remainder of the goods were slyly conveyed in the evening to the store of Miss Dolly Carnes. This new stock brought a rush of custom to that spinster's establishment… Shawls were in great demand.”

So much trade went through Newburyport that it had a custom house, this one built in 1835.

Sarah entertained the customs inspectors while the men loaded smuggled goods.

One night a knock at the door: “Mr. Emery hastily dressed, when it was found that Capt. Bartlett had a stagecoach at the door, filled with merchandise… These were hastily placed in my best bedroom, from whence they were gradually taken to the stores in town. Capt. Bartlett continued to bring goods for some time. We often had bales of valuable cloth hidden in the hay mow.”

Bales of imported cloth....

Maybe we should be checking the barns around Newburyport

While David drove the goods to warehouses Sarah entertained the customs officials in the tavern. Everyone was in on the plot. Her other job was to keep the rest of the tavern customers from giving in to an “unseemly outburst of merriment.”

Sarah’s memoirs were published in 1879 and were actually written by her daughter Sarah Anna Emery, a novelist who probably embellished the tales. (Were patchwork quilts so commonplace they could be used as wagon covers?) In The Reminiscences of a Nonagenarian Sarah Anna explains:

"This volume, as its title implies, has been chiefly derived from the recollections of my mother; but recitals by my father, grandparents and other deceased relatives and friends have aided the work, and I have obtained many anecdotes and facts from several aged persons still living… My desire has been to give a graphic history of 'Ye Olden Time'…”

Newburyport a century after the War of 1812

Yet Sarah's memoirs of ye olden time give us enough detail to realize how imported cottons, barred by embargoes, got into the eager hands of American quilters. Smuggling went on up and down the Atlantic coast and across the Canadian border. As diarist Minister William Bentley of Salem wrote in 1813: "The public mind much interested in the schemes of smuggling." He described one modus operandi. An American vessel meets at sea an English ship, which has agreed to be a "prize," a captured ship brought to shore with its goods declared forfeit. "We are already the greatest adepts at smuggling in the Universe."

Variations of these "palm trees and gamebirds" printed in England were popular with Americans

We see many variations. Jeremy Adams in the catalog Calico & Chintz summarizes the dating of these prints: "From about 1814 to 1816 and during the decade 1825-1835, designs containing exotic and game birds were popular patterns on English chintz."

We see them as borders, as wholecloth quilts and as cut-out chintz applique.

Quilt by Violet Elizabeth Alexander, Charlotte, North Carolina, Date-inscribed 1830, Collection of the Smithsonian Institution

Read more about Violet's quilt by clicking here:

http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object.cfm?key=35&gkey=169&objkey=9567

Center of a North Carolina quilt by Cynthia Clementine Johnston.

See the whole quilt and more information at the Quilt Index:

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4B-82-495

The fabric seems to have been printed in England, much of it at the printworks known as Bannister Hall in the teens, and used in quilts here from about 1810 to 1860.

In February we'll consider English prints---the bales of imported cloth in Sarah Smith Emery's hay mow.

Read The Reminiscences of a Nonagenarian here at Google Books

http://books.google.com/books?id=RQbHOrNqDhsC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

British?

And if you want to read a day-by-day account of life for a bachelor minister in Salem during the war see The Diary of William Bentley, volume IV (Salem: The Essex Institute, 1914)

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Swag Borders

Cut-out chintz quilt by Elizabeth Severson Emich

Photo copyright by the Maryland Historical Society.

I found this little-seen quilt in a Japanese catalog from the historical society.

The Baltimore Album Quilt Tradition: Maryland Historical Society

Used copies are still available at a fairly reasonable price.

We've been discussing borders of simple shapes like the triangles along the edge in the above quilt but there was also a fashion for more complex swag borders as in the inner border.

Here's a sampler of a few from about 1810.

The swag borders are among the earliest applique designs that are not cut from chintz images---conventional applique.

This chintz quilt from the Smithsonian's collection includes everything: swags with bowknot ties of conventional applique and a few cut-out chintz flowers.

Our critical eyes prefer more perfection in the swag shapes.

It seems that many of these quilters hadn't much of a template to go by.

The sources for the design idea are obvious.

Sheraton's suggestions for cornices

Swags and bowknots were everywhere in

classical imagery and federal architecture.

1781 Fashion Plate.

See the Martha Washington/Eliza Custis quilt in the last post for a swag fabric.

Border in an American quilt thought to be from the 1770s

in the American Museum in Bath, England, signed R. Porter

Vintage Rose

Judy Severson's updated interpretation of a swag border,

graceful arcs tacked down by roses.

Here's a sketch of a basic swag I did for a quilt a few years ago.

Print it so the dotted line is 6" long.

Ann's Legacy: A Tribute to Ann Daggs by Di Ford

If you'd like a "real" pattern for a period swag here's Di Ford's interpretation of the Ann Daggs (Dagge) quilt in the Smithsonian. Buy the pattern here:

http://www.threadbear.com.au/online-store/category/view/29

See some antique quilts with swag borders:

Margaret Nichols's Tree of Life in the Winterthur Museum collection:

http://content.winterthur.org:2011/cdm/singleitem/collection/quilts/id/340/rec/1

A faded example with an inner swag border in Michigan State University's museum from the Quilt Index:

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=1E-3D-24

And one dated 1809 by Eliza Thompson from the International Quilt Study Center & Museum (#1997.007.0257)

http://cdn.firespring.com/images/5d76f7b8-3e7f-4b75-8f75-b4089957f066.jpg

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Two-Generation Quilt

"This Quilt was entirely the work of my grandmother

as far as the plain borders. I finished it in 1815

and leave it to my Rosebud. E. P. Custis."

This note is attached to the Washington/Custis quilt in the Smithsonian's collection. Rosebud was Eliza Parke Custis's daughter, also Eliza.

Quilt top begun by Martha Dandridge Custis Washington

and finished by her granddaughter Eliza Parke Custis,

about 1780 to 1815.

Collection of the Smithsonian Institution.

Martha started it, perhaps in the 1780s, and she left it unfinished at her death in 1802. Her granddaughter Eliza finished the top in 1815, so it spans our time period.

Plan for a 104" x 104" square quilt

Center = 24" x 24"
Seven Borders

A = 5" Plain striped fabric with brown cornerstones
B = 3" Plain pinkish fabric with brown cornerstones
C = 6" Appliqued with circles and ovals
D = 6" Pieced of striped fabrics
E = 7" Plain foulard print with circles in cornerstones
F = 6" Mitered swag print
G = 7" Mitered foulard print

The Center Square Finishes to 24" x 24"

Begin with a central field of circles finishing to 12" square. (Martha loved circles!)

She appliqued hers, so you need four dark circles finishing to 3" and 1 full medium brown circle plus 4 half circles and 4 quarter circles. Applique these to a background cut 12-1/2" x 12-1/2"

You could also piece these circles, which is how I drew the central focus in EQ7.

Here's the block which has to finish to 3 inches.

Click on this picture; print it at 3" square.

Framing the Central Field (This isn't the same proportions as Martha's but the math is easier)

The first dark frame 1 finishes to 1" wide and 14" square.
Cut 2 dark strips 1-1/2" x 12-1/2" and 2 dark strips 1-1/2" x14-1/2".
And 4 medium corner squares 1-1/2" x 1-1/2".

The second light frame finishes to 1-1/2" wide and 17" square.
Cut 2 light strips 2" x 14" and and 2 light strips 2" x 17-1/2"

For the corner triangles cut squares 6-7/8" x 6-7/8"
Cut 2 brown and 6 pink squares and cut in half diagonally to make 4 brown and 12 pink triangles

Border A---5"

For Border A framing the central patchwork Martha used a stripe left over from one of her dresses. Martha loved stripes.

It seems to be a brown serpentine stripe with another stripe of dots printed across it.

Find a stripe and cut

4 strips 5-1/2" x 24-1/2"
4 medium brown print cornerstones 5-1/2" x 5-1/2"

With this border the top should finish to 34".

Border B---3"

This plain border is pieced of a pink and white stripe with a little floral trail across it.

Cut 4 strips 3-1/2" x 34-1/2".
Cut 4 medium brown cornerstones 3-1/2" x 3-1/2".

With this border the top should finish to 40".

Border C---6"

Border C is plain white cotton with appliqued circles and ovals. This border finishes to 6" so cut 12 circles finishing to 4". Then cut 4 oval shapes from a toile to feature an image. These ovals should be about 4" tall by 5" wide.

Applique these to 4 white strips and cornerstones.

Cut 4 strips 6-1/2" x 40-1/2".
And 4 cornerstones 6-1/2" x 6-1/2".

With this border the top should finish to 52".

Border D---6"

Border D is pieced of rectangles cut from stripes and each border has a pieced block in the center. At 6" I've made this border narrower than Martha's.

This block is also the basic structure of the center of the quilt. I haven't seen a published name for the block so I think we should call it "Lady Washington's Favorite" (I'm drawing it in as number 2403.5 in my copy of the Encylcopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.)
Martha pieced the blocks out of two different stripes and one small print. You might want to use a little more contrast and a little less stripe.

For each of the 6" finished blocks (Do this 4 times)

Center square: cut a striped fabric 4-3/4"
Corners: Cut 2 dark and 6 medium dark squares 2-3/8". Cut each in half with a single diagonal cut. You need 4 dark and 12 medium dark triangles.

You then need to piece these blocks into a border. Each border strip should finish to 52". You have 23" on either side of the squares so you'll need two rectangles to fill this area. Note how Martha used stripes.

Cut 8 rectangles for the ends 6-1/2" x 10-1/2".
Cut 8 rectangles 6-1/2" x 13-1/2"
For the cornerstones cut 4 squares 6-1/2" x 6-1/2".
With this border the top should finish to 64".

Border E---7"

This is a plain border of a dark foulard print (diagonally set figure) with appliqued striped circles in the cornerstones.

Cut 4 strips 7-1/2" x 64-1/2".
Cut 4 white squares 7-1/2" x 7-1/2" for the cornerstones.
Cut 4 circles finishing to 5" to applique.

With this border the top should finish to 78".

Border F---6"

This Quilt was entirely the work of my grandmother

as far as the plain borders. I finished it...

I am guessing Eliza added Borders F and G. This one is mitered rather than finished with square cornerstones.

For F find a gorgeous swag printed chintz or toile. You need 2-2/3 yards.

Cut 4 strips 6-1/2" x 90-1/2"
With this border the top should finish to 90".

Border G---7"

The final border is another dark foulard print (3 yards).

Cut 2 strips 7-1/2" x 90-1/2" for the sides.
Cut 2 strips 7-1/2" x 104-1/2" for the top and bottom.

With this border the top should finish to 104".

I hope the math is right. If you think I have miscalculated let me know.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

A Border of Circles

We've looked at basic borders of chained squares and zig-zag lines, both simple, both popular with early medallion makers.

Detail of a medallion by Sophia Coltrane.

North Carolina quilt project

Here's another basic design---dots or appliqued circles.

Not very popular. And in fact kind of quirky.

I've only kept track of them because I noticed them on two Washington family quilts.

Quilt top begun by Martha Dandridge Custis Washington

and finished by her granddaughter Eliza Parke Custis,

about 1780 to 1815.

Collection of the Smithsonian Institution

I don't think the dots are going to start a craze but just in case I'll post an outline for a medallion like Martha's and Eliza's above in the next post.