Stars in a Time Warp 9: Chrome Yellow

Reproduction star block by Becky Brown

Reproduction star block by Becky Brown

Chrome yellow is lemon-colored, an intense yellow with a slight greenish cast.

Vintage block, mid 19th century

Here's a copy of that block that I made. I even had the same chrome yellow print in a reproduction.

Vintage applique, mid-19th-century

That must have been one popular print.

Vintage quilt 1880-1910 detail

Vintage top 1830-1860

You can find the color in early 19th century quilts. The mineral dye process dates back to the 1810s.

The chemistry for chrome orange and chrome yellow

is quite similar. Above, a New York quilt dated

1859-60 includes both colors.

Vintage quilt 1840-1870

Vintage quilt 1840-1870

Chrome yellow became quite popular with quilters about 1840, when the colors of German folkloric arts were adopted for quilts.

Vintage quilt 1870-1910

The shade continued popular  through the end of the 19th century.

Vintage quilt 1870-1900

Vintage  top 1890-1920

A swatch from William Crooke’s 1882 manual on prints and dyes showing

chrome or canary yellow stripes.

Vintage chrome yellow prints

Chrome yellow prints---often the same print over and over--- became known as oil-boiled calicoes after 1880 or so. (Oil-boiled refers to an obsolete step in the printing process.)

We might consider these 1880-1930 prints

a reproduction of the 1840-1880 style.

Quilters in southeastern Pennsylvania bought many yards.

Block by Carrie Hall, probably made about 1930, in Spencer Museum of Art collection.

Hall used nostalgic reproduction prints to get the traditional color scheme.

Ann Hermes has this end-of-the-19th century

quilt for sale in her Etsy shop.

https://www.etsy.com/people/annhermes1

Reproductions

Reproduction block by Becky Brown in

chrome orange plain and chrome yellow print

A reproduction of a reproduction from my collection 

Old Fashioned Calicoes

Dawn Cook Ronigan's reproduction

miniquilt, donated to the AQSG auction last year.

She emphasized bright chrome yellows and chrome oranges in her reproduction palette.

Reader Valerie's green and red blocks backed by reproduction

prints from her chrome yellow stash.

S.F. used chrome orange and chrome yellow.

Reproduction chrome yellows

Judie Rothermel from Party of 12

Chrome yellows don't sell as well as reproduction blues and madder browns so good repros are sometimes hard to find. You need a collection of prints and solids in your stash.

Recent line: Touch of Baltimore from Little Quilts.

Display at the Thistle Bee Quilt Shoppe.

Reproduction Star by Bettina Havig

You see a lot of chrome yellow solids in antique applique.

Vintage applique quilt dated 1858

 

Moda's Bella Solid 9900-131, Lemon, is a good match

if you are looking for a canary solid.

What to do with Your Stack of Star Blocks

More Ideas for Alternate Applique

 Buy these patterns. Adapt them for 6" blocks.

Here's an excellent idea for alternate applique from 

friends Alma Allen, Jan Patek and Sue Spargo who

included "Cottage Flower" in their 2000 book Simple Pleasures

A Cottage Flower block by Karen at Log Cabin Quilts,

who did a lovely job with classic prints pushed to low values.

http://karen-logcabinquilter.blogspot.com/2012/08/cottage-flower-blocks.html

Froncie Quinn at Hoopla reproduced a 

quilt by Florence Peto from the 1940s in which 

simple applique alternates with nine-patches.

Why not stars instead of nine-patches?

See the Calico Garden here:

https://hooplapatterns.danemcoweb.com/shop/product/calico-garden-pattern/

Peto's original used some Chrome Yellow reproduction

prints.

Lisa Bongean at Primitive Gatherings designed her own version of Peto's quilt:

 Lisa's Flower Garden

with her ideas for simple applique and color.

http://lisabongean.com/2010/05/13/summer-bow-preview/

 Lisa's Flower Garden

One More Thing About Chrome Yellow

Chrome yellow cottons were produced in England but mainly for export. Chrome dyed fabrics, especially the solids and the brightest prints, seem to have been sold in the United States primarily for quilts. 

In her research for the Ohio Quilt Project, fashion historian Virginia Gunn found an 1849 advertisement for dressmaking drygoods, such as printed lawns and ginghams, with a separate category: “Green and Yellow Prints for Quilts.” Yellow and gold solids are not found in American clothing---gowns, shirts or baby outfits. Gunn wrote that any “solid-colored cotton was little used as dress fabric.” 

In 1842 a Baton Rouge merchant offered

"French, English and American calicos, a variety of patterns, red, blue and green,"

probably aiming at that same quilt customer.

Drygoods store in Minnesota, about 1900

See another post about chrome yellow here:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2011/10/chrome-yellow.html