QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Sunday, February 26, 2017

Crown of Thorns with Appliqued Sashing

Debby Cooney sent a photo of a recent acquisition---
Combination of pieced fans, appliqued sashing and
lovely quilting. I thought "Tennessee" and she confirmed it.

The pattern is closely related to one we call New York Beauty. In the South the traditional name is Rocky Mountain or Crown of Thorns.

Detail of an all pieced version of the Rocky Mountain from a Jeffrey Evans auction.
This quilt with its chintz border looks to be from the 1840s, the decade the all-pieced
design seems to appear.

Interesting symmetry of the applique vines in Debby's.
Debby has a show on applique at the Virginia Quilt Museum opening this month.

Rosie Mayhew made this reproduction around 2000 from a pattern I drew
for our Sunflower Pattern Co-operative.


Do notice on this page of examples how much variety there is in the sashing applique.
Aside from being classified generally as spiky or curvy there are no two sashes exactly alike.

Auction, attributed to East Tennessee.

It's a Southern pattern, probably dating from the mid 19th-century.

Elmira Duncan Pearce family, Tennessee Project and the Quilt Index

Kibert Family, Tennessee Project

Minnie West Bergman, Kentucky Project.

 M.E. Plonck from the North Carolina quilt project

Most of the examples with the appliqued sashing
look to date from the last quarter of the 19th century.
The fabrics tend to be the solid-color cottons produced in Southern mills,
with the typical fugitive greens from the 1880-1920 era.

Spectacular example sold at Case Antiques in Knoxville, Tennessee




Bill Volckening's collection.
He has two gorgeous examples.


He has one curved and one spiky.

The red in this one from French Antiques has an orange cast,
making me think it might be mid-20th century, but it is hard
to judge from a photo. It just doesn't have the blueness of Turkey red.


Here's the latest vintage example I've seen---from Stella Rubin's shop.
Definitely 20th century in color and minimalism.

One thing I noticed in sorting through these photos is that not one of the quilters
used a print. See more about solid color fabrics in the South at my post here:


We've sold all the older pattern packets but now we have digitized them so you can buy the pattern with some updates at our Sunflower Pattern Co-op Etsy shop.

Either as an Instant Download for $7:

Or we will print them out and mail the 8 pages to you for $12.

The update includes a curvy applique sashing with pomegranates,
much like the antiques above.

See more about the name New York Beauty in these posts:

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Repro of a Repro of a Repro of an Indienne


Indienne (detail), Wood block printing on cotton, factory Oberkampf in Jouy, 1785

Way at the top of the blog page I've posted a picture of a repro print I did a few years ago in a line called Lately Arrived from London with the document print I copied it from.

Directly above is the same print from the The Museum of Printed Textiles in Mulhouse, France. Could my document print be as old as 1785?  Is it the oldest piece of fabric in my collection?


My piece of chintz on the left,
 white colorway of the repro print I called Seaflower
in the center and tan colorway on the right.


I am reading Susan W. Greene's estimable book Wearable Prints 1760-1860. She shows two versions of the same print with the Oberkampf print being the newer one (page 97). The print on the left above is a little more crude in the drawing and printing style. She believes it to be an Indian chintz that inspired the Oberkampf print.

I wonder about my example, though. It is not the same colors as the Jouy museum's print.

Mine is stained but the original colors seem clear, and the blues and purples
just aren't the same as the earlier prints. I think I have a later copy of the Oberkampf print.

Much like this one with the same bright colors.
Perhaps late 19th-c to early 20th?
I recall a friend of a friend gave it to me years ago.

The Seaflower repro. We didn't do the purples.


Seaflower in the background of Roseanne Smith's star quilt.

So the Seaflower print is a repro of a repro of a repro of an Indian chintz.

The tan colorway

I wish I could tell you where to buy some yardage of the six-year-old Seaflower repro but it seems to be sold out. I did find several other prints from Lately Arrived from London still available online. If you do a web search for Lately Arrived from London you might find some.

I can, however,  tell you where to buy Susan W Greene's book Wearable Prints 1760-1860.
It's a must-have if you are interested in historic fabrics. The subtitle says it all:
History, Materials and Mechanics.

A little more about the Lately Arrived from London collection from 2011.

Roseanne's quilt before the border.

And after.
Now she has to quilt it.

Monday, February 20, 2017

Past Perfect: Sue Garman

Detail from Borrowed Roses by Sue Garman

This month's Past Perfect Quiltmaker is Sue Garman. I'd been thinking about showing Sue's quilts and then she passed away last month, much to the sorrow of her friends, family and fellow classical quilters. Here's a tribute to an important quiltmaker and designer of our time.

Borrowed Roses was inspired by Rose Kretsinger's 1929 quilt
in the collection of the Spencer Museum of Art.

See the original Rose Tree quilt here:


Sue Garman with one of her non-traditional quilts
From the Quilt Show.

On her webpage Sue said she had been making quilts for 40 years and that's why she had so many great ones to show.  That is not all of it---or even half of it. She had a real gift for interpreting quilts from the past, occasionally exact copies like the Borrowed Roses, often clever interpretations.

Twirly Balls & Pinwheels

Lily Rosenberry
In recent years she'd inspired many with her applique quilts.
She certainly knew how to fill a square block.

Baltimore Squared

Pennsylvania Star

Her color sense was enviable too. She could capture 19th-century shades and go out on a limb by pushing them too.

Tucker's Tulips

My Old Kentucky Beau

Postage Due


Sleeping Beauty

The Washingtonian

My Country Tis of Thee

Detail of Sue's Borrowed Roses

Sue in Texas was a lot like Rose Kretsinger of Emporia, Kansas, who inspired a small revival of classic applique in the 1930s.  Like Rose, Sue was innovative, generous and just a touch competitive.

People wonder why so many masterpiece quilts came out of Emporia, Kansas. In the future they may wonder why so many classics came out of Houston, Texas.

Patricia Meyer's Texas Two Step used  Sue's Lily Rosenberry block for the corners.

Sue through exhibiting her quilts, teaching, publishing  patterns and blogging and inspired a larger revival of classic applique in her own time. 
Georgann Wrinkle's Little Lily from Sue's blog.

We can envy the friends in her small bee who seem to have received periodic patterns and challenges from Sue.

Student's work in a class. Rebecca's Stars.

Sue's daughters are maintaining her webpage, blog and the pattern business. The webpage Come Quilt has lots to see under patterns and gallery.

The blog (quite a lonely place without Sue) is worth scrolling backwards through the monthly posts for insight into her designing and her recording of the things she saw that impressed her.

Halo Medallion

The 2017 Block of the Month on the Quilt Show is a Sue Garman design, pieced by Carolyn Hock
and quilted by Angela Walters.


There's an Instagram page for Sue's quilts. Click here and add some with the tag #suegarmanquilt

Any ideas for a traditional quiltmaker I can feature on a Past Perfect post here?