Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Washington Whirlwind #3: Lincoln's Platform

 

Washington Whirlwind #3: Lincoln's Platform by Becky Brown
Purple for Mary Lincoln's favorite color, set with black & white for ours.

Lincoln's political platform was enough of a threat to the South
 that several states seceded before he was even inaugurated in March, 1861. 

President Buchanan tipping his hat beside Lincoln on
the way to Lincoln's inauguration from Harper's, March 16, 1861.

But we aren't here to talk politics---rather parenting. The Lincolns may have argued noisily and held different opinions on many things but parenting was not one of them. The official Lincoln Platform was, “Let the children have a good time,” according to Mary Federico in her introduction to the recent edition of Julia Taft Bayne's Tad Lincoln's Father. Federico describes them as “doting parents” of bad boys.

An idealized Lincoln family, Willie with his mother and Robert
and Tad next to their father

Julia agreed, remembering that Tad and Willy were "never accustomed to restraint.” Lincoln's secretaries John Hay and John Nicolay had little patience with the "mischievous" boys who had the run of the White House. Secretarial assistant William Stoddard recalled an episode in their offices, one of which overnight...
"Assumed a suddenly disastrous look...The green cloth cover of the broad table was ink-stained and work-worn, last evening, but it was whole. It is by no means a unit, now. Tad and Willie Lincoln have been here, and they are the happy owners of brand-new pocket-knives. They are sharp knives, too, that will cut outline maps of the seat of war, or of anything else, upon green cloth table-covers.”

Thomas "Tad" Lincoln and indulgent father 

Lincoln's Platform by Jeanne Arnieri

William Wallace Lincoln

Willie Lincoln, older by three years and often characterized as "sweet," followed his younger brother into the rascality explored by the Lincoln and Taft boys. Certainly those Tafts were not raised by an indulgent mother and Mary Cook Taft probably knew little of what went on at the Lincoln home. Tad was the brains of the bunch.

John Hay in later years recalled Tad, as a "chartered libertine...idolized by both his father and mother...He had a very bad opinion of books and no opinion of discipline...The President took infinite comfort in the child's rude health, fresh fun, and uncontrollable boisterousness." 


John Hay (1838-1905) when he began working as a Lincoln secretary.

Lincoln's Platform by Denniele Bohannon

The Block
We have at least 3 published versions of "Lincoln's Platform." BlockBase
shows the simplest as published in Carrie Hall's 1935 book.(BlockBase 1646a)

Oh for heaven's sake! I forgot the pattern. Here it is! Thanks Rina.



 Lincoln's Platform by Becky Collis

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

2024 Applique: Kentucky Classic Block of the Month

 

We have big plans for applique this year and it all starts in three weeks.

We've long admired Garrard County's appliqued medallions
like Amanda Estill Moran's recorded by the Kentucky Quilt Project.

See more about her quilt in a post here:
And more about the related Kentucky quilts here in a post about Garrard County (pronounced to rhyme with Herod like King Herod.)

Numerous talented quilters have also been inspired by the medallion format:
Merri Garton's recent version of Deb King's
"Deb's Not Telling the Whole Truth" in Australia.
They tell me the name comes from the fact that Deb told
them it would be simple.
Simple that medallion is NOT. 

Becky B.'s palette: Red & green on an updated toile with blues.

We are making it even more complicated. There will be every other month in 2024 (March, May, July and September) a pattern for a medallion interpretation of the Kentucky Classic medallion, some with blocks repeated. We'll also show you Becky Brown's changes to the pattern.

On the last Wednesdays from March through November there will be nine single-block patterns to set side-by-side---much less intimidating and better for those of us with the short attention span. The medallion set requires 4 copies of some of the blocks. The monthly side-by-side sets requires only one each of the nine blocks.

Side by Side

Becky Collis is making the Medallion format too, using red & green
but with a contemporary tilt. One large-scale, several small-scale prints
and a couple of vivid solids. Her background-almost white, almost gray.

Now you are going to ask How Much Fabric do I need?????
You always ask that.
My best guesses (it's always a guess with the mathematically challenged.)

For the side by side below:


Background fabrics for the medallion below: 
2-1/2 Yards (Plus extra for a border if you want to add one.)


For the applique. The first question is always:
Scrappy or Consistent Across the Blocks?
For scrappy: Fat quarters of 3 lights, mediums & darks to contrast with your background.
Do shop in your stash.

For consistent: I'd buy 1-1/4 yards of at least 5 fabrics.


Now just to further overwhelm you I am showing you Rita Verroca's interpretation of the Garrard County classics, which she calls Sundance. She's added a lot---birds & sunflowers.


 Her fabrics are traditional red and green, a bit of pink and chrome orange. It is just amazing. Buy the pattern here ($120).

Look for our first pattern in Kentucky Classic March 27th.

Here's our Facebook group where you can post your own pix and see what others are up to.
KentuckyClassicQuilt

And you can find a pattern at my Etsy shop---$12:

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Herbarium #12: Hop Vine for Sarah Josepha Hale

 

Herbarium #12: Hop Vine for Sarah Josepha Hale by
Kathy Suprenant

Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (1788-1879)


Hop Vine is a rather practical pattern to recall the great romancer of flowers Sarah Hale, editor of Godey's Lady's Book from 1836 to 1877 and author of an influential and popular book Flora's Interpreter: The American Book of Flowers and Sentiments.


Flora's Interpreter must have inspired many verses
for albums---bound and perhaps quilted.

Sarah who lived a long life, dying at 92, was a generation older than many of the women we've looked at in the Herbarium seriesHer floral book began with a bit of botanizing in which she lists common and botanical names of various flowers but she (and her readers----she was very good at determining what readers wanted) were more interested in sentimental meaning. The book is primarily collected poetry and quotes. A lady might use the nonverbal "Language of Flowers" to send a "coded message" as a floral gift, an album inscription or even a quilt block. (Let's not go too far on coded messages in quilt blocks!)

Hop Vines (Humulus family) from a German print, 1860


Hop vines would have no sentimental spot in such a book (unless you were a fan of beer) but Sarah's publishing empire (she published dozens of books) included cookbooks too.

Hop Vine by Becky Brown

Although she was a great influence on Victorian America's romantic era Sarah was a practical woman. Born in New Hampshire, she married David Hale when she was in her early twenties. Her 39-year-old husband died in 1822 when she was pregnant with her fifth child. She'd taught school but turned to writing for a career, publishing a saleable novel Northwood: A Tale of New England five years later. She moved to Boston where she edited a New England women's magazine and then to Philadelphia to take over Louis Godey's Lady's Book.

The Lady Editress, 1850

Godey's often published patchwork patterns
over the years but as a taste-maker hoping to
elevate the vernacular, Hale was not about to publish
 floral appliques or the novel calico block designs American
quiltmakers were actually using.

1854
Silk template pieced geometry was her standard---more elegant.

Her Philadelphia row house at 922 Spruce

Shelburne Museum's Sampler
No Hop Vines in Godey's.
Our mysteriously similar patterns certainly were
not published in the mid-century magazines.

National Portrait Gallery
Auguste Edouart's 1842 silhouette portrait of Sarah,
mentioning her floral books.

Godey's Lady's Book was America's widest circulating magazine before
the Civil War, a real achievement for the editor.

Hop Vine by Becky Collis

The Block

Half of the eight samplers have similar Hop Vines, all greens.

12 Hop Vine by Barbara Brackman

Humulus lupulus
Similar trifoliate leaves in a botanical print

12 Hop Vine by Denniele Bohannon

Becky Brown's finished top 2023

Shelburne Museum Collection
The original inspiration with the names of the blocks

And that's the last pattern of our Herbarium. 
See a post with links to all 12 patterns published in 2023 & 2024 here:

Post pictures of your blocks and finishes at our Facebook group HerbariumQuilt:

Kathy Suprenant's Blocks in progress

Print this label on your ink jet printer on treated fabric for a label for your Herbarium quilt. It should print out 6" by about 7-1/2". Plenty of room for your own information.

Next month (March 27th) we begin the 2024 applique BOM Kentucky Classic.

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Ellen Tucker Emerson's Civil War

 

Lidian (Lydia) Jackson Emerson enjoying breakfast in bed with
her cats. Sketch by her daughter.

Ellen Tucker Emerson (1839-1909) in 1860

At 17 Ellen returned from school in western Massachusetts to the family home to live the rest of her life. She never seemed interested in marriage but enjoyed her position managing the Sage of Concord's home. 

Edward, father Waldo (as he was called) and Ellen in the 1850s

Ellen's father Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was one of the foremost writers, philosophers and personalities of his time. Ellen's mother was a perfect example of a Victorian invalid, depressed and prescribed debilitating drugs. Calomel causing mercury poisoning probably contributed to her lethargy, digestive problems and moodiness. She was often considered too delicate by female constitution to venture from her bedroom. She had to be coaxed to eat; her low weight was often remarked upon. Nevertheless, she lived to be 90 years old, delighted for her daughter to fill her role for the last 35 years of her life.

Lydia Jackson Emerson (1802-1892)
Lydia Jackson was Ralph Waldo Emerson's second wife, married in 1835.
 His first named Ellen Tucker Emerson had died of tuberculosis
 after a short marriage. Lidian (husband Waldo changed her name) 
 suggested the first wife's name for her eldest daughter.

From her last year at school in Lenox daughter Ellen wrote:
"The next year will probably be an apprentice-ship in house-keeping and that I hope to have begun my career as superintendent of the house.”
When the Civil War began Ellen had been housekeeper and father's secretary for several years. In the introduction to Ellen's biography of Lidian Emerson, Delores Bird Carpenter tells us she at first "thought news of every new recruit...a great thing," regretting that the only family member who joined was a second cousin. Lidian was thrilled at news of civil war. She was sure it meant the end of slavery.

Timothy O'Sullivan's photo of a few of the hundreds of freedpeople
who became Union responsibility in 1861

Although Ellen was focused on her family during the war, she joined other Concord women in sewing for soldiers and for Port Royal Islanders freed by Union victories on the Carolina coast in the first year of the war. Her mother also went to Soldiers' Aid Society meetings but she held sewing in "low esteem," recalled Ellen. 


Lidian's contribution was buying expensive English pins to fasten the handmade bandages. Ellen heard from a wounded Concord soldier that his doctor was glad to see his bandage stamped "Concord, Mass" as those had "a pin in them that would work."
"When every old sheet in Concord had been made up and sent, people began to sacrifice their good ones, and Mother, greatly elated, saw to it that the supply of pins never failed."
Library of Congress
Women visiting patients from the 36th New York
 at the Portsmouth Grove Hospital, drawing by Private William Thompson Peters, Jr.

On a summer, 1862 vacation to Rhode Island with the Henry James family, Ellen spent a morning at Portsmouth Grove Hospital for wounded soldiers near Newport, Rhode Island. "I returned utterly unable to send anyone to the war with cheerfulness."

Good friends John Murray Forbes and Waldo Emerson shared
grandfather duties to Ralph Emerson Forbes, Ellen's sister Edith's oldest.

Ellen often accompanied her father to Boston's Athenaeum library where a librarian recalled them, Ellen carrying his papers and books in her satchel. "I remember that she would sometimes try to induce him to accompany her on a round of social calls. He usually seemed rather averse to doing so.....In a thousand little ways, here among the books, I have observed her provide for his comfort and anticipate his every want."

Concord Museum Collection
Ellen & a needlework project (?) 1899

In her biography of her mother Ellen mentions a good deal of fabric and bedding but the quilts (there must have been some!) are not recorded among words like blankets and downs, which might mean eiderdown coverlets.

Metropolitan Museum of Art
Adeline Harris Sears, Rhode Island, Silk celebrity quilt

Famous people were often asked to sign a scrap of fabric and return it by mail. Adeline Harris was quite successful in her quest for donations from celebrity "lions." Underneath Emerson's signature at top, those of Samuel F.B. Morse, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry W. Longfellow and William Cullen Bryant who dates his to 1858.

The Concord Museum is showing needlework produced by young women in New England, particularly samplers, a show up through February 25th.
https://concordmuseum.org/


And see a 2014 exhibit there with a marvelous album quilt:

The Emerson home "Bush" in 1905. Ellen continued to live here until her death.

Ellen wrote a rather charming biography of her mother, which seems to reflect the personalities of both women. The manuscript is with the Emerson papers in Harvard's Houghton Library. https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/24/archival_objects/336565

Delores Bird Carpenter has edited and published it but unfortunately without the fabric swatches attached to the manuscript.

Ellen Tucker Emerson, Life of Lidian Jackson Emerson, Edited with an Introduction by Delores Bird Carpenter, 1992.
A preview: