Quilts: Their Story and How to Make Them (12 page)

CONVENTIONAL ROSE

A very striking pattern, made in Indiana about 75 years ago. Colours: red, pink, and green

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CONVENTIONAL ROSE WREATH

This “Wreath of Roses” design has been in use for over 100 years. Colours: red, green, pink, and yellow

“December 4th. I was much engaged in trying
out my tallow. To-day I dipped candles and finished the ‘Vicar of Wakefield.’”

“December 8th. To-day I commenced to read the ‘Life of Washington,’ and I borrowed a singing book. Have been trying to make a bonnet. The cotton we raised served a very good purpose for candle-wicking when spun.”

In the Middle West, without friendly coöperation, the lot of the pioneer would have been much more difficult than it was. Julia Henderson Levering tells of the prevalence of this kindly custom in her interesting “Historic Indiana”: “The social pleasures of the earliest days were largely connected with the helpful neighbourhood assistance in the homely, necessary tasks of the frontier. If a new cabin was to be built, the neighbours assembled for the house raising, for the logs were too heavy to be handled alone. When a clearing was made, the log rolling followed. All men for miles around came to help, and the women to help cook and serve the bountiful meals. Then there were corn huskings, wool shearings, apple parings, sugar boilings, and quilting bees.”

About 1820 a new channel of commerce was opened to the inhabitants of the Ohio Valley, in
the advantages of which every household shared. This was the establishing of steamboat and flatboat communication with New Orleans. From out of the Wabash River alone over a thousand flatboats, laden with agricultural products, passed into the Ohio during the annual spring rise on their way to the seaport by the Gulf of Mexico. On their return voyage these boats were laden with sacks of coffee, quaint Chinese boxes of tea, china and silk from France, and mahogany and silver from England. In this manner the finest fabrics, which were hitherto obtainable only in those cities that possessed sea communication, were available in every river hamlet. Many of the fine old quilts now being brought to light in the Central West were wrought of foreign cloth which has made this long journey in some farmer’s scow.

In England during the middle of the past century, the Victorian period was known chiefly for its hideous array of cardboard mottoes done in brilliant wools, crochet tidies, and wax flowers. It is particularly fortunate that at this time the women of the United States were too fully occupied with their own household arts and industries to take up with the ideas of their English sisters.
By far the best needlework of this period were the beautiful quilts and bedspreads, exquisite in colour and design, which were the product of American women. The finest quilts were wrought along designs largely original with the quilters themselves, who plied their needles in solitary farmhouses and out-of-the-way hamlets to which the influence of English idea in needlework could not penetrate. In no locality in our country can so many rare and beautiful quilts be found as in the Middle West. Many of the best were made during those early days of struggle for mere existence, when they served the busy housewife as the one precious outlet for her artistic aspirations.

The type of quilt that may be called distinctively American was substantial in character; the material that entered into its construction was serviceable, of a good quality of cotton cloth, or handwoven linen, and the careful work put into it was intended to stand the test of time. The coloured materials combined with the white were also enduring, the colours being as nearly permanent as it was possible to procure. Some cottons were dyed by the quilt makers themselves, if desirable fast shades could not be readily procured otherwise.
The fundamental idea was to make a quilt that would withstand the greatest possible amount of wear. Some of the artistic possibilities in both colour and design were often subordinated to the desire to make quilts as nearly imperishable as possible. The painstaking needlework required to produce a quilt deserved the best of material for its foundation. Silks, satins, velvets, and fine linen and cotton fabrics of delicate shades were not favoured as quilt material by the old-time needleworkers, who wrought for service first and beauty afterward.

A most beautiful example of the American quilt at its best is found in the “Indiana Wreath.” Its pleasing design, harmonious colours, and exquisite workmanship reveal to us the quilter’s art in its greatest perfection. This quilt was made by Miss E. J. Hart, a most versatile and skilful needlewoman, in 1858, as shown by the small precise figures below the large wreath. The design is exceedingly well balanced in that the entire quilt surface is uniformly covered and no one feature is emphasized to the detriment of any other. The design element of the wreath is a compact group of flowers, fruit, and leaves, which is repeated ten
times in making the complete circle. The vase filled with drooping sprays, flowers, and conventionalized buds forms an ideal centre for this wreath. Curving vines intermingled with flowers make a desirable and graceful border. This quilt is a little more than two and a half yards square, and the central wreath fills a space equal to the width of a double bed, for which it was evidently intended.

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POINSETTIA

An appliqué quilt of red, blue, and green

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WHIG ROSE

On the reverse side is a small “gold pocket” in which valuables may be secreted. Colours: yellow, red, and green

Miss Hart displayed unusual ability in choosing and combining the limited materials at the disposal of the quilt maker in a newly settled region. The foundation is fine white muslin; the coloured material is calico, in the serviceable quality manufactured at that time, and of shades considered absolutely fast, then known as “oil boiled.” Only four colours are used in the design: green, red, yellow, and pink, the latter having a small allover printed design in a darker shade.

Miss Hart planned her quilting quite carefully. In the large blank spaces in the corners are placed special, original designs that have some features of the much-used “feather” pattern. Aside from these triangular corner designs all the quilting is in small diamonds, which form a very pleasing
background for the effective coloured designs. The maker’s name and the date are closely quilted in white in plain bold-faced type just below the wreath. In the centre of the wreath, in neat script in black thread, is quilted the name “Indiana Wreath,” and all the stitchery of top and quilting is the very perfection of quilt making.

The beautiful white quilts that are treasured as relics of past industry by their fortunate owners deserve special mention. They are rare because nowadays no one will expend the large amount of time necessary to complete one. The foundation of such a quilt is fine white muslin, or fine homespun and woven linen, with a very thin interlining. The beauty of the quilt depends upon the design drawn for the quilting and the fine stitches with which the quilting is done. There is usually a special design planned for these white quilts which includes a large central panel or pattern, with smaller designs for the corners embodying some of the ideas of the central panel. Around these decorative sections the background is so closely quilted as to resemble a woven fabric. This smooth, even background throws the principal designs into low relief. After the entire quilt is
quilted and removed from the frames, the main design is frequently further accentuated by having all the most prominent features, such as the leaves and petals of flowers, stuffed. To accomplish this tiny holes are made on the wrong side of each section of the design and cotton is pushed in with a large needle until the section is stuffed full and tight. This tedious process is followed until every leaf and petal stands out in bold relief.

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POPPY DESIGN

This is applied patchwork and therefore much more easily made than pieced work; very simple quilting gives prominence to the design

The fashion which has prevailed for many years of dressing beds all in white has no doubt caused the destruction of many beautiful quilts. The white quilts that have been preserved are now considered too valuable to be subjected to hard wear. The most exquisite ones were made in the last of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries.

It was the rage for white bed coverings that shortened the lives of many old pieced and patched quilts of good colouring. The “Country Contributor” tells of her experiences in dressing up the white beds:

“I remember with regret the quilts I wore out, using them white side up in lieu of white Marseilles spreads. The latter we were far too poor to own;
the ‘tufted’ ones had worn out; and I loathed the cheap ‘honeycombed’ cotton things we were forced to use unless we were going to be frankly ‘poor’ and cover our beds with plain patchwork, made up hurriedly and quilted in simple ‘fans’ in plebeian squares, as poor folk who haven’t time for elegant stitches did theirs. So I used the old quilts, making their fine stitches in intricate patterns serve for the design in a ‘white spread,’ turning the white muslin lining up. A beautiful white spread it made, too, I realize now, more fully than I did then, though I now would know much better than to turn the wonderful appliqué stars and flowers and wheels from view. Strange, is it not, that we relinquish so much of life’s best joy and pleasure before we know what actually is good?” This fashion prevails to-day, in some instances insisted upon for sanitary reasons, but it has lost to us many of the finest examples of quilting that existed because where there were no coloured patterns to relieve the white expanse, the quilting had to be perfect. If you have a white quilt treasure it, for competent quilters are no longer numerous and few there are who can reproduce it.

I
T IS only in comparatively recent years that many articles of wearing apparel and house furnishings have been manufactured outside the home. One after another, spinning, weaving, shoemaking, candlemaking, tailoring, knitting, and similar tasks have been taken from the homekeeper because the same articles can be made better and cheaper elsewhere. The housewife still keeps busy, but is occupied with tasks more to her liking. Among the few home occupations that have survived is quilting. With many serviceable substitutes it is not really necessary for women to make quilts now, but the strange fascination about the work holds their interest. Quilt making has developed and progressed during the very period when textile arts in the home have declined under the influence of the factory. More quilts are being made at the present time and over a wider area than ever before.