Stars in a Time Warp 28: Early Indigo Prints

Reproduction star by Becky Brown using 

Minick & Simpson's Indigo Crossing

18th-century quilts might feature these large-scale indigo prints fashionable for furnishings.

An 18th-century period room at the Shelburne Museum shows

the scale of early indigo prints. From a vintage postcard.

The scale on these bed hangings is enormous,.

Printing figures with indigo is difficult to do and to understand. We could go into the various ways these blue and white furnishing prints were produced but I'm not that sure what's a resist print, a discharged print, a block-printed design or one painted by hand. Experts wonder if they are domestically produced or imported from Europe or India.

So let's just focus on getting the look.

People wore them for clothing. Above a

European woman in traditional rural dress but fashionable

city dwellers wore these too.

Reproduction from Indigo Crossing by Minick & Simpson

This is an accurate copy of the vintage piece above.

Smaller scale though.

You are looking for large-scale blue and white prints, either navy blue or lighter blue.

Another take on the early indigo star by Becky Brown

Frame quilt from the Winterthur Museum collection.

This  print is done in light blues and dark indigoes.

Several of the prints recur in various early textiles.

"Very old blue and white resist print"

Gift from Florence Peto to Elizabeth Richardson

Collection of Western Kentucky University

One characteristic is a certain crudeness to the print.

This one is atypically crude. Most are more skillfully done, but you tend to see large areas

of color with no fine detail.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art put this double blue on the cover of their Interwoven Globe textile

show last year.

If you are thinking of doing a quilt echoing the Revolutionary War period,

you might consider a wholecloth indigo print at a giant scale.

 Reproductions

Indigo Crossings from Minick & Simpson reproduced the look

for quilters.

The designers with a strip quilt behind them showing the scale

of their largest print.

Midwest Crossings

Quilt kit and pattern by Jennifer Overstreet using the line

Nancy Gere's Low Country Indigo stars are

set with the large print from her line.

Stella Bella's block for indigo blue

has a bit of the scale of the old American indigo resist.

When you're working at 6" you can fool the eye as far as scale.

Reproduction block by Bettina Havig using a true indigo print

from Europe.

You may find it easier to buy upholstery fabric for these early indigos

Tucker resist by Waverly

A den in colonial style. 

Those period rooms (see the top of

the page) continue to define traditional interiors:

Gate-leg tables, red Oriental rugs and indigo drapes.

Batik Indigo from P. Kaufman

The upholstery fabric costs about twice as much as quilt fabric

but you don't need much to add an early period look to your stars.

And remember it's wider.

What to Do with Your Stack of Stars?

Stitch a Field of Patchwork.

The Sarah Johnson quilt by Barb Perrin

When these indigo prints were the rage in the late-18th century

quilters tended to focus on a central image floating in a sea of patchwork.

Hoopla pattern for this Shelburne Museum quilt repro

When Sarah Johnson made the original, dated 1828,

she used the same sawtooth star we are using.

A sketch in EQ7 of 72 six-inch stars around a center finishing to 18".

54" x 54"

Kensington Square by Val Naden reproduction

Val's focus was the John Hewson  panel

by Kathy Hall.

1811 Hewson quilt, Cincinnati Art Museum

The panel was inspired by Hewson's block-printed design with vase, birds and butterflies.

The quilt above alternates stars with plain blocks for the patchwork field. 

The field of patchwork with a central focus is a signature design in early quilts.

Quilt dated 1815. Rhode Island Project. Quilt Index photo.

This early quilt has a very small center focus in a field of patchwork nine-patches. Is that center white

square one of the Hewson Butterflies?

 Anna Tuel's Quilt, 1785, Wadsworth Atheneum

The field was often simple triangles.

Quilt dated 1806, Delaware Historical Society

But simple stars are also seen quite early.

Di Ford's Miss Porter's Quilt echoes a quilt dated in the 1770s.

Quilt signed R Porter,

Collection of the American Museum in Bath

Some recent quilts inspired by early design ideas:

Bettina Havig, Feathered Star Medallion

Leonie Bateman and Deirdre Bond-Abel for their 

Elegant Quilts, Country Charm book

Lizzy Mae's Medallion by Lori Smith

Whose pattern?

Dawn Heese's version of a Blackbird Design. 

Update the look by placing the focus to one side. Offset symmetry is a characteristic of Blackbird's designers Barb and Alma.

I found this one on Laura Nagel's Pinterest board.

One More Thing about Early Indigoes

The International Quilt Study Center and Museum has an online show, Indigo Gives America the Blues, in which they explain various kinds of indigo printing.

They call this week's style

American Indigo Resist:

Mid to Late - 1700s

http://www.quiltstudy.org/exhibitions/online_exhibitions/indigo/indigo_introduction.html