Offered for Sale

Sold— 1934 Quilt Paper Lemoyne Stars Top

Offered for Sale

Great winds sweep the Dust Bowl. An oddity is reported in a tectonic lake in Scotland and Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster, is born. The talking picture show solidify Hollywood’s lead on culture and commercialism while the FBI hunts Bonnie & Clyde and notorious gangsters in the era of the “public enemy.” Alcatraz becomes a federal prison. Unemployment decreases to 22%, marking a turning point in the Great Depression. Adolph Hitler becomes the commander in Chief of Germany.

While the world hurled forward in 1934, individuals kept up with their daily business, as did the unknown maker of this lively LeMoyne star quilt top. The softer news of this incredibly complicated American era is documented in the newspaper clippings she used as foundations for the difficult to piece bias-cut 8-point star. Baby chicks hatched and were sold, seed catalogs marketed the season’s best varieties, dress goods were sold by the yard. Comic strips, classifieds, and women’s achievements in sports are here documented.

For this quilt, she chose bubblegum pink borders and a variety of large scale novelty prints and feedsacks. Geometric designs, horses, tea cups, ballerinas, and a variety of florals are combined in settings and star points. The fabrics are in excellent, unused condition, and the newspaper is crisp and easily legible— a testament to careful storage. The single defect is light to medium staining, seen most notably in the top row, second column, which most likely bled through while the quilt top was folded.

If you’re looking for a piece of material culture and love quilt paper and ephemera, here’s a great piece documenting an important moment in American history. See it on ebay.

 

Sold— Cockscomb or Cotton boll pod? A Unique Large Block Appliqué c.1870-1890

Offered for Sale
This early quilt from the Deep South is a truly unique, large-block appliqué quilt with a half-block top edge and striped interior borders. At 82″ by 65″ it’s quilted in an all-over Baptist fan pattern at approximately 6 stitches to the inch, giving the hand-carded heavy batting great texture throughout the quilt. Confident but nimble appliqué hand stitching tacks the red and tan (dun) medallion designs onto a muslin.

The original Turkey Red medallions may have been inspired by oak leaf or cock’s comb designs, and are somewhat reminiscent of Princess Feather shapes in their flared tips. The central turkey red appliqué shapes encase single tan (dun) Oak leaf or Princess Feathers, which are then also placed outside of the medallion. The end result radiates out from the open center, creating a symmetrical design unlike any I have seen. It is as if the quiltmaker was inspired by the period’s large cock’s combs, oak leafs, and Princess Feathers and sat down to create a pattern herself with the visual inspiration in mind but out of sight. Quilt scholars have commented that the pattern could be inspired by a cotton boll pod.

This quilt features all the wear and tear one can expect with an aged quilted textile that has been used and stored. Fortunately, the key fabrics are generally in great shape, with no bleeds, no flocking, and little overall deterioration with a few holes and scattered staining as pictured (especially on the back). There is significant staining on the back of the quilt along the fold lines and deterioration of the backing fabric in one corner. The binding is in place around the entire quilt, but is fraying and torn throughout. This age related wear and damage adds to the interest and appeal of this truly unique early quilt from a Mississippi estate.

Sold— Eggplant Velvet & Robin Egg and Grass Green Silks

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This presumably 19th century silk log cabin recently acquired from Tower Hamlets, London, UK, is holding its story close. Understanding its provenance would be easier for one more versed in antique textile trade across the Atlantic and the origins of the various designs of the progressively-pieced blocks we call ‘log cabin’.

The Log Cabin may very well be the quintessential idea of the quilt for the average American. Its folklore abounds, with various attributions of what the pattern means or the center block signifies— but the pattern, while heavily Americanized, didn’t actually find its genesis in America at all. It’s a pattern as old as Egyptian mummified animal remains wrapped in pieced linen; as worldly as a Kyrgyzstan tush kiiz (pieced tapestries decorating yurts across the centuries); as continental as the designs from the Isle of Mann. In fact, British log cabin quilts can be found in the first half of 19th century, prior to the trend taking root in America in the mid to later 19th century. Yet, what makes a log cabin American or British is perhaps something that only the most well-researched individuals can ascertain. While this quilt was recently sourced from Tower Hamlets, London, the question of whether it has an American provenance and has traveled the world, or whether it is of British origin and is now located in the USA remains an open question. There is much to be learned from this quilt.

Hand pieced, it is approximately 65″ x 60″ with a rich eggplant silk velvet border and a single embroidered stitch running the length of a seam, as would be found in Victorian era crazy quilts. The center of the quilt consists of a large variety of silks, with rich colors from soft teals to robin egg blues to a spring green and bright blue which seem certainly over-dyed. The silk blocks flaunt many woven jacquards or brocades or ribbon weaves, and the colors have a quality to them that I cannot put my finger on.

It’s in very good condition for a textile this age, yet silk is unfortunately prone to deterioration and this quilt has not been spared. Many of the silks have shattered but are intact upon the face of the quilt (no brittle breaking off of silk pieces, just shredded warp and weft which is still attached in the seams). Some of the light tan blocks present a little surface dirt upon close view, but the quilt as a whole presents as truly regal and remarkable. The true color is much closer to a plum eggplant— certainly more eggplant than wine color. Judging from the sides of the quilt, there clearly once was a backing fabric attached but it is no longer present. The entire quilt is hand pieced using white and black thread, with a loose weave muslin (linen?) foundation and tufts of batting and loose threads that can be examined for fiber content.

It should be spared from light but I can’t stop looking at it.

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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.