Sold— c.1860-1870 New England four-post Star of Bethlehem

Offered for Sale

This lovely New England Star of Bethlehem is beautifully made. Hand pieced and quilted, the stars were pieced with a steady hand out of crisp hand dyed cottons sometime around 1850-1860. Featuring Over-dyed Green (sometimes called Poison Green), Chrome Yellow, Cheddar, and Turkey Red with a fine white background cotton, this quilt is emblematic of its era in all four categories quilt historians consider when dating or establishing provenance— pattern, style, colors/fabrics, and construction.

The on-point setting of the Star of Bethlehem pattern suggests a New England provenance, as four poster beds were common among more wealthy New Englanders from the 1830’s-1870’s and quilts were crafted to drop without forcing wrinkles around the bed posts at the foot of the bed. The colors are classic dyes found just before the mass manufacturing of synthetic dyes that began in 1860’s— resulting in an era of gorgeous colors that were easy to produce but later found unable to stand the test of time. Here, specifically, the over-dyed green suggests a pre-1860 date, where quiltmakers would first dye in blue then yellow (or vice versa) to achieve green. Later synthetic greens marking the latter quarter of the 19th century have largely faded to ‘dun’— a khaki color. Other dye techniques represented in this quilt include the classic Turkey Red, an oil-based color-fast (often animalized) dye bath much preferred to (vegetable) madder dyes which proved to not be colorfast, and a classic Cheddar and Chrome Yellow often seen used as accents in mid 19th century quilts. The hand piecing and hand quilting further marks its age. While the Star of Bethlehem is a time-honored six-point star pattern revered by generations of quilters, the New England cut out and on-point setting— plus all four classic colors of the era— make this quilt a rare find.

Photographed on the front patio of my 1842 homestead in Xenia, OH. The Hopewell Indian Mound, Clifton Mill, are just down the road, and I can tumble through two covered bridges to get to the Village of Yellow Springs. It’s not a bad life.

Pebbles and Swirls

Machine Quilting & Surface Design

I first learned how to pebble and swirl from Angela Walter’s Craftsy class “Machine Quilting Negative Space.” Angela Walters is an excellent instructor— especially for people who have quilted some, but are really looking how to become comfortable with a toolkit of free hand designs that can be stitched into just about any quilt. If you’ve been trolling Pinterest for those heavily-quilted contemporary pieces full of pebbles, swirls, spirals, and other designs that climb right up out of the batting, this is the class for you.

Why choose this class instead of a different one?

  1. Angela uses a long-arm machine in this class. It doesn’t really matter for learning the designs unless you are a total newbie and would prefer seeing someone with their hands oriented to their domestic machine. For the rest of us, it means that the camera view is clear and you get a sense of the rhythm and movement of the designs.
  2. It’s a classic introduction to a basic toolkit of contemporary free motion designs. Swirls, clamshells, spirals, pebbles, feathers— if you’re looking for that heavily quilted free-hand look, this is a great starter class to build your toolkit of go-to designs.
  3. Don’t scrimp on the paper and pen! Doodling really helps to get the design down, and especially, how to move from one design to another.

While you can get a pretty good sense of a particular design by looking at quilts in museums and around the internet, Angela’s specialty IMO is to teach you the flow of a design, both in how to complete one element and in how to replicate it across your surface.

I have purchased many Craftsy classes— and have a wishlist of 15 more courses, which would represent a considerable investment. This is one I do not regret buying! If you purchase through this link within the next 7 days, I may get a small commission that will help me write more reviews, as I just became a Craftsy affiliate! It’s 50% off for Black Friday!