Civil War Album Style

1861, Esther Griffin for her daughter Mary

It's time to think about next year's Block of the Month with a Civil War theme. I think it should be pieced as I wanted the piecers to have their year without the A word. So my first thought was:

Pieced blocks from album samplers dated between 1855 and 1865.

1862, From the collection of the American Museum in Britain

That sounds like a good idea but it wasn't.  I had to recalculate.

1863 John W. Hinton,

North Carolina Project & the Quilt Index

There are, surprisingly, very few pieced blocks from samplers dated 1855-1865. I began by looking at my files of quilts dated 1860-1865.

1864. For Robert W. Wilson

Above the pieced blocks---a checkerboard, a basket & a Cleveland tulip variation---and the last two have applique.

Quilters apparently did not contribute many pieced blocks to album/samplers dated 1855-1865.
This in itself is a style discovery.

By the late 1850s album samplers were composed primarily of applique blocks.

1864 from Rahway, New Jersey & Laura Fisher's shop.

And even those that had quite a few pieced blocks showed little variety in the pieced blocks: album blocks like chimney sweeps, stars and baskets, It would be a dull year.

I'll think of some other source for pieced blocks for 2018. And we'll do applique in 2019. At least now I know it would be historically accurate.

See more about applique samplers here:
http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2013/06/appliqued-sampler-typical-civil-war.html

Quite surprising how little appeal pieced blocks had for Civil-War-era stitchers making album quilts

Two sisters sewing, a stereoscopic photo from 1865

by the London Stereoscopic Company.

See their site here:

http://www.londonstereo.com/

1860 ad from Harper's Weekly

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