Saturday, October 13, 2018

Linsey---Civil War Souvenirs

Nine Patch Linsey quilt
Collection of Merikay Waldvogel


At a 1908 fair in Lexington, Mississippi, locals displayed their heirlooms including a "Quilt, pieced after the [Civil] war, of goods woven at home during the war, loaned by Miss Sue Young."

The tale is consistent with the theory that many of the homespun and home woven quilts pieced of jeans cloth, hickory cloth and linsey were made after the war to preserve war mementos such as homespun.

Home woven fabrics of wools and wool/cotton or wool/linen mixes are hard to date. A plaid in brown and indigo would look the same in 1770 or 1870. Blue jeans cloth like the triangles in the block above----you can imagine how hard a swatch would be to date.

Nine Patch from a Skinner Auction

So we have to rely on other clues for dating---such
as style and quilting.

The fan quilting design of concentric quarter circles is
a good clue to a date after 1870.

Flying Geese of wools and mixed fabrics from the Tennessee project
& the Quilt Index.
Extremely hard to date. Diagonal line quilting no help.

And the simple patchwork---often nine patches--- is no help either.


??? from the Michigan project.
By Elsie Winchester, Haywood County, North Carolina.
NC Project

Minerva Ogle's quilt from the Tennessee project 
offers a little assistance in the pattern of rectangles,
a popular pattern about 1910. Fan quilting---post Civil War.

Read more about linsey in an early war here:
http://quilt1812warandpiecing.blogspot.com/2012/03/linsey-woolsey-quilts.html

https://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-slave-made-quilt.html

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2015/08/ann-knoxs-linsey-quilt.html

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2015/09/another-view-of-ann-knoxs-quilt.html

4 comments:

Suzanne A said...

Uh-oh. I see one of these I'd like to copy -- the strippy of stripes of flying geese with dark side triangles and a tan-ish solid. I like how most of the "geese" are stripes and plaids. As if my wish list wasn't already hopelessly long.

Chantal said...

So interesting. I always thought it must be so hard to figure out the age of a quilt and now I understand that it is extremely hard to know the age of a quilt. I especially love the one right after Suzanne's favorite. Made of only two plaid fabric and yet it work so well and still look so good. Thanks for the sharing of all these beauties. ;^)

Nann said...

The one I'd like to copy is the Skinner Auction nine-patch. The soft grays combined with plaids have a modern-quilt vibe.

Barbara Brackman said...

They are beautiful aren't they.