We're Over Half Done

Dixie Diary

TwelveOaks195

We've done Block # 7 of the Dixie Diary block-of-the-month, so we have 5 to go. People have been posting their progress. Twelve Oaks has added the one-inch frame to hers as she goes.

I found some of these in our Flickr photo album. Click on the photographer in the left hand column or here:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/civilwarquilts2011/

I did a little photoshopping to make them look their best.

Dixie Diary

Rosemary Y

Rosemary has sashing plans.

Dixie Diary

Honas52

And Honas52 has finished a top with half her blocks.

Dixie Diary

Cookie's Creek

 Cookie's Creek has posted her first six, pieced in pink and brown.

Dixie Diary

Moose Bay Muses

She's using Jo Morton's Alexandria reproduction line. 

See her tutorial on how to applique a simple star here:

http://moosebaymuses.blogspot.com/2013/03/easy-applique-stars-mini-tutorial.html

Dixie Diary

Pinkdeenster

She's been re-purposing old embroidered linens. It's turning out quite well.

The black is just the photography background. 

It will be fun to find out what she comes up with for a setting.

Post your progress. We'll look forward to seeing how it's all coming together.

Civil War Era Photo with Quilt

Several years ago I saw this stereocard photo in an online auction.

I didn't win it but I saved the picture as the women's dress indicated the 

picture was taken in the 1860s.

I found the photo the other day and enlarged the quilt to see what they are admiring.

[UPDATE: Five years later I have figured out the photo is probably a Civil War-era studio set up shot using actors by New York photographer George Stacy.]

The closest I could figure out was the standard octagon in a square

BlockBase #4141

Although the photo pixels break up at this scale and there might be a little more pattern than this basic

square with the corners cut off.

It seems to be shaded in counterchange fashion---what's light in one square is dark in the other---

and not scrappy. So I colored it in pink and brown in EQ7.

In BlockBase there is a button you can hit

that will tell you its published names

Calico Snowball  from Evelyn Brown who had a pattern magazine in the 1960s

Hour Glasses or Octagons from Lenice Bacon's 1970s book

Rob Peter to Pay Paul from Carlie Sexton about 1930

And The Marble Floor from the Kansas City Star in 1930

The "View Namelist" button looks like

an index card, the second index card in the top row of buttons in BlockBase.

In my file of patterns to make some day

I found this circa 1860 quilt done in madders and Prussian blue. 

It is the same block but not shaded in counterchange fashion---every center is dark.

And there is a pieced sashing that forms a star.

A design wall would come in handy with that sashing.

I was inspired to try to figure out the pattern by the show of quilts in photos from Janet Finley's collection that is up at the International Quilt Study Center and Museum.

Posing With Patchwork Quilts: Quilts in Photographs 1855-1955 is at the museum in Lincoln through December 1, 2013.

You can also see the exhibit online by clicking here:

http://www.quiltstudy.org/exhibitions/online_exhibitions/onlineexhibits_intro.html

You will see they have found a quilt in the pattern for each photo.

Dixie Diary 7: Living Off Cornbread

Block 7

Living Off Cornbread

8" Version

Southern shortages affected everyone, even spoiled girls like Sarah Morgan who lamented she could find no strings for her guitar or seed for the pet birds. By the end of the war these minor complaints might have embarrassed the older, wiser woman she became. Food for people was becoming scarce in Louisiana and would become scarcer.

A 12" version with a 1" frame, set on point

By Sandi Brothers.

A child and a fancy birdcage

September 4, 1862 Clinton

Ouf! what a country! Next time I go shopping, I mean to ask some clerk, out of curiosity, what they do sell in Clinton. The following is a list of a few of the articles that shopkeepers actually laugh at you if you ask for:  Glasses, flour, soap, starch, coffee, candles, matches, shoes, combs, guitar-strings, bird-seed,---in short, everything that I have heretofore considered as necessary to existence. If any one had told me I could have lived off of cornbread, a few months ago, I would have been incredulous; now I believe it, and return an inward grace for the blessing at every mouthful."

 The Morgans were probably better off at the crowded boarding house in Clinton. Photographer Andrew Lytle captured breadlines outside his studio in Baton Rouge.

The pieced block is #2039 in BlockBase,
 called King's Crown by the Kansas City Star in 1931.

Cutting 12"

A: Cut 1 square 6 1/2".

B: Cut 1 square 7 1/4". (5-3/16" if you use the 1/16th" default) Cut into 4 triangles with 2 cuts. 

C: Cut 4 squares 3 1/2".

D: Cut 4 squares 3 7/8". Cut each into 2 triangles with 1 cut. 

Cutting 8"

A: Cut 1 square 4-1/2".

B: Cut 1 square 5 1/4" (5-3/16" if you use the 1/16th" default). Cut into 4 triangles with 2 cuts. 

C: Cut 4 squares 2-1/2".

D: Cut 4 squares 2 7/8". Cut each into 2 triangles with 1 cut. 

Add smaller triangles to either side of the B triangle. Make 4 of these. 

Add the squares on either side.

Make 2 of these rectangles for top and bottom.

Add the remaining rectangles to either side of A.

Piece the 3 strips together.

Optional applique:

Applique a star or a heart after piecing.

Go back to the January 5, 2013 post to see a JPG with the heart and the star.

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2013/01/dixie-diary-1-her-flag-flying.html

A Lincoln Signature Quilt?

"Abraham Lincon

[P]Resident U.S. America

1865"

Well you'd hope it was an authentic autograph but did he ever misspell his name?

And the office?

An authentic Lincoln signature in an autograph book.

See more about that signature here:

http://www.thebreusgroup.com/abraham-lincoln-signature/

This Turkey red signature quilt from the Snyder family

belongs to the

Historic Huguenot Street Museum in 

New Paltz, New York

SUNY student Ashley Trainor did a genealogical project to date the quilt, which has 63 Ulster County signatures on it. There are also three famous names: 

"Abraham Lincon,"  “Mrs. Abraham Lincoln,” and “Gen. U.S. Grant”

Using marriage, birth, and death dates, plus the famous names, she has come up with the date 1865-1866, consistent with the date on the Lincoln block.

You can't see many details but the print in the Lincoln block looks consistent with that date. Signature quilts were quite popular after 1841 and this "Chimney Sweep" pattern was extremely popular, particularly in New York, from the 1840s until about 1920, so it isn't much help in assigning a date. Do scroll down to last week's post to see it used in a Wisconsin Civil War quilt. 

Borders are always a weak clue, but a clue nevertheless, and those multiple strip borders indicate a date after 1875 or so. Perhaps the blocks were put together and quilted later.

See Ashley's blog post on the quilt at the Museum blog:
http://hhsstreet.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/a-thread-of-families-the-snyder-friendship-quilt/

Hazel Green Wisconsin Soldiers' Quilt

Detail: The Hazel Green Soldiers Aid Quilt

Collection: Grant County Historical Society

Lancaster, Wisconsin

This pink signature quilt has been handed down with an inscription and the story of its making.

The inked inscription:

"Made by the members of the Young Ladies Soldiers Aid Society Hazel Green, Wis. 1864."

The story is that the women made the quilt to raise money for the Soldiers Aid Society.

This view seems to show a part of the quilt.

See more at Wisconsin History:

http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm/ref/collection/wda/id/2222

You can view it quite closely to see the various double pink prints.

Hazel  Green is a little town in Grant County in southwestern Wisconsin not far from the Mississippi River. 

The Grant County Herald in October 23, 1861 printed a plea to the ladies of the county.

“LADIES: - Your husbands, sons and brothers are now imperiling their lives in behalf of your country…But yet your duty to your country ceases not with the offerings you have already tendered. It requires at your hands still further sacrifices. It requires you now to show benevolence equal to your patriotism…You are solicited to come forward and tender the government your assistance in alleviating their distress. Our soldiers on duty – the sick and wounded in the hospital, require your aid and assistance…A sanitary committee, composed of some of the most scientific and benevolent citizens are appointed to act in concert with the agents of the government to procure a supply of such articles as our soldiers stand the most in need…Form yourselves into neighborhood societies, appoint some of the most active of your members to solicit money or contributions of materials; hold weekly sessions, bring together what you have been able to collect and purchase…Those articles that are now most needed are blankets. Through your committees of “Good Samaritans” solicit the donation of woolen blankets from every household that can possibly spare one. If woolen blankets cannot be had, get quilts or comfortable, padded with cotton…”

The women responded. The 1881 Grant County History complimented them.

"Soldiers' Aid Societies were organized in every city, village and township...Many a soldier boy's heart has jumped with joy, as boxes laden with warm clothing, pocket comforts, or delicacies to which he had long been a stranger, came fresh from the far off Northern home..."

Appliqued Sampler: The Typical Civil War Quilt?

Red & Green Applique

Hand appliqued and hand quilted by Wendy Turnbull

2012

Wendy showed this terrific wall quilt at our guild show recently.

She was inspired by some applique patterns she liked,

particularly the Cotton Boll in the center.

I didn't need much of an excuse to show it here, but I thought it was the classic Civil War era reproduction, so here it is for you to admire (do notice the hand quilting!)

I've been collecting pictures of quilts made in the 1860s and when you look at those on my Pinterest page you see that one typical Civil War style is an appliqued sampler in red and green.

http://pinterest.com/materialculture/quilt-civil-war/

Like this one dated 1862-3 from New Jersey from the Antiques Road Show.

See another New Jersey sampler on Barbara Shaffer's blog here:

http://barbaradschaffer.blogspot.com/2011/10/1860s-nj-quilts-on-display.html

If you are looking to make a Civil War quilt reproduction---applique might be the way to go.

See Lori's group reproduction at her Humble Quilts Blog

http://humblequilts.blogspot.com/2009/07/civil-war-sampler.html

I noticed one of her group also liked the Cotton Boll block.

If you're looking for patterns EQ has digital patterns for 16 designs in a Civil War Sampler:

https://www.myeqboutique.com/Shop/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=655&idcategory=4

Homeward Bound

from Sew Graceful Quilting

And Sew Graceful Quilting is doing a block-of-the-month starting this month---a sampler of applique kitted up in my Moda collection Metropolitan Fair for the applique.

See the "Homeward Bound" BOM here:

http://sewgracefulquilting.danemcoweb.com/shop/product/homeward-bound/

Susannah Pullen's Quilt

Soldier's Aid Society quilt

1863

 Organized by Susannah Corey Pullen (1816-1871)

Augusta Maine

Susannah Pullen's Civil War quilt is in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, donated in 1936. We might recognize it as a Civil War quilt because of the way it is constructed ---block-by-block with bound edges, what we call potholder quilts today.

The reverse of the quilt shows the binding around each block

which is harder to see on the front.

When Susannah's granddaughter donated the quilt she sent a file of paperwork, with two letters

from soldiers, one dated Nov. 22, 1863:

 "Dear Madam I have had the pleasure of seeing the beautiful 'Quilt' sent by you to cheer and comfort the Maine Soldiers. I have read the mottoes, sentiments, etc., inscribed thereon with much pleasure and profit."

There are no mottoes inscribed on the quilt today. There is nothing visible on the quilt in the photos---but the contradiction is explained in the museum catalog's last paragraph. The quilt was on public display in the Augusta public library for many years. The front was covered with inked inscriptions and must have made an entertaining exhibit. But the light faded the ink (or perhaps time changed the ink's chemistry) and the inking is gone.

One inscription read:

“The commencement of this war took place Apr. 12th 1861. The first gun was fired from Fort Sumter. God speed the time when we can tell when, and where, the last gun was fired; & ‘we shall learn war no more.’ If this quilt survives the war we would like to have it returned to Mrs. Gilbert Pullen, Augusta, Me . . . This quilt completed Sept. 1st 1863.” 

Susannah Pullen invited letters from soldiers in another inscription:
"We have many dear friends connected with the army & any proper letters from any persons embraced in the defense of our country, received by any whose names are on this quilt shall have a reply. Tell us if nothing more its destination. We meet with many others to sew for you every Wednesday and your letters would prompt us to more exertions for our patriots."

Another of the over 150 inscriptions:
"If you are good looking send me your photograph. Direct to the name in the large square. E.G.D."

Before the years of exhibition faded the inscriptions completely, someone transcribed all of them.

The next time a possible museum donor requests that you keep her quilt on permanent display you might direct her to the National Museum of American History's page on this quilt. It's a cautionary tale.

http://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?view=&dsort=&date.slider=&q=pullen

Read much more about the quilt in Virginia Eisemon's, "Sunday School Scholars Quilt: Civil War Textile Document," Uncoverings: 2004, The Research Papers of the American Quilt Study Group, Volume 25