Period Quilting Frames Part 2

Last week I showed pictures of traditional quilt frames and how they were propped up parallel to the ground. The four boards that support the quilt were not permanently joined together.

The simplest way to hold the boards together may

be C Clamps as in the above photo from Canada about 1900.

C Clamps are adjustable hardware that looks like the letter C.

They can be manufactured as the metal antique above

or handmade as in these wooden clamps.

In this more recent picture manufactured metal clamps

seem to be holding the boards together. We can see by the

borders that the quilt is extended out as far as it goes.

The frame can be propped up in the back of the church

basement when not in use. Here the Methodist quilters

in Wheatland Texas pose with a Trip Around the World

quilt in a C clamped frame.

Cheyenne women using a frame supported by

sawhorses and C clamps in 1961. The frame

is clamped so a smaller area of the quilt

shows. Quilters usually begin in the center and work

out to the edges.

Here's a frame positioned to take up

the least amount of space. If working alone

or with one or two others, this is a good

solution to the space problem, a smaller footprint as we'd say today.

C-clamp upside down in

Saginaw, Michigan, perhaps about 1950. 

Does anybody quilt standing up? 

These women need

ladder-back chairs so they can lower the frame.

I wonder about the authenticity of this staged photo.

The history of manufactured C-clamps is as vague to me as the history of sawhorses. You might want to do a little hardware study to see what the typical C-clamp looked like in 1863.

The frame in Kimmel's 1813 painting is lashed together

with the same string or strips that fix the quilt to the frame.

This might be a good solution if you don't have 4 period C-clamps.

I also see regularly spaced holes in the boards above.

Similar to what's depicted in this quilting scene from Harper's Weekly

in 1863.

I have an old frame like this with holes down the middle of the boards.

LRStitched blogged about a pierced board she inherited

from her great-grandmother.

http://lrstitched.com/2011/10/14/my-vintage-quilting-treasure-quilt-contest-entry/

Those holes could serve several uses. One could thread the quilt to the frame using them, or hang the

frame from the ceiling with rope through the holes. The holes might intended for pegs. You'd line up the holes and peg them together as you rolled the quilt up.

H W. Pierce's "A Quilting Bee in the Olden Time," a nostalgic

print from 1876,  shows "colonial ladies" at a frame held together with pegs

and holes. He probably knew little about how 18th-century quilters

constructed frames, but this seems like an accurate representation

of a 19th-century frame.

The frame is held together perhaps with

pegs through the holes, resting on a middle

rung in a ladder back chair. Is that a reticule

(purse) hanging from the chair?

In this 1990 photograph from Florida Memory

Alma Bailey is quilting on a frame with what look to be home-made

wooden pegs holding the frame together. The holes in the frame are also used

to attach the sides of the quilt to the frame. The left-over string hanging down

will be laced to the frame and the quilt as the frame is extended and re-pegged.

See the photo here:

http://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/110145

Again in Florida, women peg a frame together.

The Florida Memory site has dozens of

pictures from about 1990 showing quilting groups using

a variety of traditional quilting frames. Search for "Quilt" on their site.

Another way to roll the quilt up on the frame

is the cogwheel. See a discussion here:

http://www.quiltingboard.com/vintage-antique-machine-enthusiasts-f22/grandmas-quilting-frame-older-t250515.html

The other board that LRStitched inherited is also full

of holes, but they don't pierce through the board and

the holes are very irregular.

Library of Congress

These smaller holes are probably made by tacks that

held the fabric that held the quilt to the frame.

You wouldn't want to tack the actual quilt or backing to the frame, but you'd tack a sturdy piece of fabric like the ticking in the above mid-20th century of quilters in Lititz, Pennsylvania. The quilt is pinned or basted to the striped ticking.

The Canadian women have wound strips to the frame

to support the quilt, rather than tacking the sturdy cloth to the frame.

These early 20th-century women have tied the

sides of the quilt to the frame with string. It doesn't look too stable,

but they are tying or tacking the piece rather than quilting it.

If I were looking for Civil-War-era accuracy, I'd stick with

home-made solutions rather than factory-built hardware

and frames.

Woman in White Springs, Florida

State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory,

http://floridamemory.com/items/show/106921

And don't even think about a hoop. It's a 20th-century idea.