Stars in a Time Warp 20: Excentric Prints

Reproduction star by Becky Brown.

The star is a version of an eccentric or excentric print. Either spelling is correct. Americans spell it with two C's today. You'll see below excentric as an alternative.

A vintage excentric print, about 1880.

One extremely popular style of cylinder print featured fine geometric figures with jagged or wavy distortions---"a particular style of design known by the name of 'excentrics,' in the production of which England surpasses every other nation in the world," according to a proud printer testifying to the British Parliament in 1840.

Fine, wavy lines in a vintage quilt about 1830.

The style was so popular in the 1830s that the British Parliament heard testimony about the originality of eccentric prints in hearings concerning copyright infringements when the House of Commons was worried about continental mills stealing English design. It was generally the other way around, the printers admitted. The English stole from the French.

The Parliamentary report was illustrated with examples.

Eccentric prints were the exception.  Calico printer John Brooks testified he'd been in the business for thirty years and while "spots had been seen since time immemorial," two eccentric prints were "the only real original patterns I recollect since I have been a calico printer." He mentioned one called Diorama created by accident when a parallel stripe creased in the roller, "producing a new and unexpected effect. " Rather than discarding the misprint, the enterprising mill owner was inspired to create a new fad for jagged stripes. 

Two very popular variations called Hoyle's Wave (1822) and Lane's Net followed.

Lane's Net in a nine-patch about 1870

Variations on Lane's net from my collection. 

The largest piece is 20th-century.

A lilac version from an 1870-1890 quilt

Vintage illustration of some eccentric prints.

A Parisian swatch book from 1825

shows an excentric print at the bottom here.

Eccentric prints, an English specialty, were probably based less on accident and more on technological advances in lathes and other metal tools. The word excentric means odd or erratic but it also refers to geometric ellipses and circles with centers at different points (as opposed to concentric circles.) 

Toolmakers developed metal lathes with so-called excentric chucks that could create mechanical drawings of endless lines, first used to engrave intricate bank note backgrounds.

Illustration of "Fancy Turning" from about 1860

 The English calico printers adapted the technology as well as the name.

Lane's Net was popular in madder-style shades.

Americans quilters continued to use eccentrics in their quilts through the early 20th century.

An eccentric excentric from about 1880

More eccentricity by Becky Brown.

Her repro print is a South African fabric

featuring stripes of different period excentrics.

Reproductions

One of Jeanne's many great repros with a Hoyle's Wave

Nancy Swanwick's repro block with an eccentric center.

Reproduction block by Becky Brown

They used the same recent print. Anyone remember the line?

Nancy and Jeanne say:

"Mourning Grays by Carrie Quinn"

From the Mill Book 1892 collection. 

Two of Nancy Gere's 

Kathy Hall for the Southcott Quilt, reproduction

of an 1808 quilt at the Winterthur Museum

Mary Koval for Palampore

And Mary's Cynthia

Here's an old reproduction print you may still have...

Jenny Zutphen's repro block includes the fabric Terry Thompson and I did for Moda

based on the document print below.

A variation of Hoyle's Wave

I found this fussy cut example of our repro in a hexie at the 

Quilts in the Barn site.

What to do with your Stack of Stars?
Update the look by staggering them in a border.

Medallion by Kathy Ronsheimer

She turned each star block

into a rectangle by adding a strip of background.

Star over the Rockies by Lolly Platt using a

Mountain Vistas pattern by Judy Martin

I first noticed this contemporary use of staggered stars in a border by Judy Martin.

She and Marsha McCloskey included it in their 1995 book

Pieced Borders.

For our 6" stars you'd want to add a strip to

each star cut 6-1/2" x 2". The block now finishes to 6" x 7-1/2".

Rotate the rectangular blocks 180 degrees to get the dancing stars.

Stairway to the Stars Block of the Month designed by Winnie Fleming

Maureen Gore Brooks, Celtic Hearts

 Turning your square star into

a rectangle could lead anywhere.

Another Judy Martin quilt

It's sort of like the excentric lathe.

Excentric prints, excentric quilts.

One More Thing About Eccentric Prints

Prints in a swatchbook from France about 1830

Combination excentric/serpentine stripes

The astounding popularity of excentric designs in the 1830s shows the importance of novelty to the burgeoning cotton printing business, which was becoming an economic force. By the 1840 Parliamentary hearings the members heard that the taste for excentrics "is like everything else in the trade, transient and temporary…The passion for it is over…The style was exhausted and the public required something new."

But excentric prints weren't the only strange prints. Printers often complained about the public taste for novelty (it seems to be a built in human need.) During the early decades of roller printing they created some truly novel and eccentric designs. 

An odd print from an 1837 swatchbook.

The Powerhouse Museum has the swatches from this sample book online here:

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/electronicswatchbook/

Over on the left on the main page see if you can read the list of books and click on the 1837 button.

That book shows many eccentric prints (in the sense of odd or strange).

The search for novelty seemed to be driving the roller printing

industry at the time.

These are not the kind of prints likely to be reproduced.

The market would be minuscule--- you guys and me.

See another post about early excentrics:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2011/10/excentrics-in-nebraska.html

Read more about the British hearings on copyright and excentric prints here

https://books.google.com/books?id=p9vd3ZKq6EoC&pg=PA119&dq=Hoyle%27s+Wave&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tegOVeSFJ8ygNozAg4AK&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Hoyle's%20Wave&f=false