Memorial Quilt from Julie Silber's inventory.
Stacked stones underneath an obelisk.
"Grant's Monument Quilt Block"
from an old scrapbook
The continuing Civil War discussion has focused recently on monuments & memorials. The movement to remember the War in statues and stone was quite a national trend in the years around 1900, a fashion reflected in quilt patterns too.
BlockBase shows two variations on the monument or tombstone design.
BlockBase #888
Grant memorial ribbon
Ladies Art Company #136, Garfield's Monument
Ex-President Grant died in 1885;
President Garfield was assassinated in 1881.
This pattern was published in 1889.
An obelisk
Variations on the obelisk were published and stitched from about
1880 to 1920.
Garfield's Monument
Perhaps Farm & Home in the 1880s.
Mountain Heritage Center & the Quilt Index
Buckboard Quilts
Doyle Auctions pictured this one they called Garfield's Tomb. I think
they had it upside down.
The other pattern is more like a rustic mausoleum.
Stacked stones (or logs)
Skinner advertised this one as a wedding cake;
Shelly Zegart has one in her collection she calls Beehive.
But it was published as a monument.
Something in demand by quilters at the time.
A small one I used to own with that fine brown wool deteriorating.
I sold it to friend Julie Powell.
The patterns were published as monuments to Presidents
but quiltmakers seem to have thought of them as family gravestones.
Here's a variation from the Quilt Index, with a flat top.
The quilt top has papers attached with names to be inked or embroidered.
The block lower right says Dad...1928
The number is upside down in this photo because the seller did not see it as a tombstone.
No place for the name in the example.
It was one of a pair
Same pattern with a white space for a memorial plaque so to speak.
In a circa 1900 sampler...
Another circa 1900 sampler. The set of
red X blocks makes for an interesting repeat. The monument block
is actually on point.
A Turkey red & white top someone found at a yard
sale in Arizona. From the Quilt Index & the Arizona Project.
It's a different pattern, constructed perhaps as a strip quilt.
Variations on this design could be seen
as a tessellating shape, right side up or up side down.
Hoover-Minthorne House
Oregon
I guess this one would be constructed in strips too.
More on monuments:
4 comments:
I finally finished my civil war sampler. I was having so much fun with it and then something interrupted my progress. Well, it's a quilt top now (although much smaller than I had originally planned). You can see it here;
http://solsticestudio.blogspot.com/2017/11/my-garden-gnome-holding-up-my-finished.html
Thanks for hosting such a fun and interesting BOW.
Very interesting block. Will definitely have to make at least one.
I wonder if some of those designs were refined for modern day quilts - rockets or even lipstick?
Great to see so many variations of this pattern and idea in one place. Thanks, Barbara.
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