April 8 – 11, 2004
These restored messages come from the Quilt History List, an online forum where quilt historians, collectors, researchers, appraisers, and enthusiasts discussed antique quilts and related textiles. The archive dates from 1996 through approximately 2016 and is being restored gradually. Sign up in the form at the bottom of the page if you want to know when a new page is added. Original spelling, opinions, formatting, and inactive links may remain unchanged.
Primary topics of this QHL Digest:
- UGRR Debate Continues — The Underground Railroad quilt-code discussion continues, with members citing Gladys Marie Fry’s scholarship and debating black slave ownership history.
- Antiques Roadshow Pine Burr Quilt — Members discuss a Pine Burr pattern quilt featured on Antiques Roadshow, including its inventory history and appraisal.
- Identifying a Poem on a Memorial Quilt — A member’s mystery inscription on a memorial quilt is identified as a passage from Sir Walter Scott’s ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel.’
- Portland Museum’s Calico and Chintz Catalog — Members ask about and discuss the Portland Museum of Art’s Chintz and Calico exhibit catalog, including where to view images of the 22 featured quilts.
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 19:30:39 -0400 | From: <mreich@>
Thanks to all of you for your speedy response. Yes, it is very touching. sue
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 19:42:16 -0400 | From: <mreich@>
It seems unfair for me to request that you all identify this poem without telling you about the quilt top that it is written on. I believe it is WWII. It has a center medallion painting on white cotton of an eagle holding multiple American flags in its talons and a banner with the first four lines of the Sir Walter Scott poem. The center panel is surrounded by multiple borders of red, white and blue fabric. Unfortunately, I do not have any provenance on the quilt top. It looks very new and used. At first, I thought that it may have been used to cover a coffin but the overall size and shape is off for that. It troubles me to think that it might have been made for a soldier who lost his life in battle. I would be happy to share a photo with any of you who would email me privately. Thanks again for the help. sue
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 16:43:01 -0700 (PDT) | From: Kris Driessen <krisdriessen@>
Hello, all! I have been on the road with the QuiltBus so I haven’t kept up on happenings. Looks like I have some interesting digests to go through when I get home Wednesday.
I received this E-mail which I thought I would forward to the list in case there are any collectors on it. PLEASE respond to her, I don’t know when I will have net access again so I don’t want to have to forward E-mail.
Hi Kris, > I have a client who needs to raise money and has some Egyptian > Applique hangings (early 1900’s) he’d like to sell. Do you have > any > clients that might be interested or know where I might send him? > > Thanks for any thoughts, Tracy Jamar, NYC tjamar@
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center – File online by April 15th http://taxes.@/filing.html
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 19:47:48 -0500 | From: “Kathy Moore” <KathyMooreneb.@>
But I was wondering why it would be extra special even if it was owned by a black slave owner. I was thinking that given slavery existed until the Civil War and a large number of quilts that did survive from that period would have been more likely to be the ‘good ones’ and perhaps from well off people, .. wouldn’t half the quilts come from the south and from slave owners.
Or is there a widely disparate amount of Northern quilts compared with southern quilts that survived the war.
Just curious?? or am I missing the point?? Suzy
In answer to your questions, which are good ones: One reason I was curious was that the mention of “black slave owners” would make a quilt extremely exceptional. You don’t hear of black slave owners. There may have been a few in the Carribean. I haven’t researched it. But that would certainly be a factor to consider in establishing date and provenance, wouldn’t it?
As for Northern vs Southern quilt survival. I believe it has been established that more quilts survived from the North than from the South during this era because of the relatively successful blockade of Southern ports. That plus the difficulty of getting goods over land during the war. New fabric was extremely hard to come by and expensive in the South during that terrible time. The “scorched earth” tactics of General Sherman as he cut a long and wide swath though the heart of the deep South and the success of the blockades meant that for many years after the war any commodities that survived were used up. There wasn’t any money to buy anything. There wasn’t much of anything to buy. And it took many years to replant, rebuild, and reestablish an economy.
Lessons about which I wish we didn’t have to keep being reminded!
Have a beautiful Easter morning, Kathy Moore Lincoln, NE
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 21:34:28 -0400 | From: Carol Bikofsky <biko@>
The author is Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). The quotation is part of a poem entitled “The Lay of the Last Minstrel”.
carol
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 13:52:35 +1000 | From: “Quiltstuff” <quiltstuffoptusnet.com.au>
Oh, I see… are they talking about a black person who owned slaves?? as opposed to a person who owned black slaves. ( BTW sorry if these are not politically correct terms for this day and age.. I would not like to offend anyone )
If so, I would think that would in itself being highly rare.
Suzy > > In answer to your questions, which are good ones: One reason I was curious > was that the mention of “black slave owners” would make a quilt extremely > exceptional. You don’t hear of black slave owners. There may have been a few > in the Carribean. I haven’t researched it. But that would certainly be a > factor to consider in establishing date and provenance, wouldn’t it?
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 21:39:00 -0700 (PDT) | From: Donald Beld <donbeld@>
Regarding the issue of black slave owners–there were a few in Louisiana pre Civil War, believe it or not. And I think in Texas as well. But the quilt on Antique Roadshow was supposedly made by a slave–which is also a rarity. Although it is claimed that slaves made many quilts, few surviving quilts are documented to actual slaves as opposed to former slaves (like Harriet Powers–my favorite 19th Century quilter)
Also, no one has written in with why they think the Antique Roadshop was a Pine Burr pattern. I still would like to know–it really isn’t Double Pineapple as I stated it was close to. Double Pineapple has a nine patch center and the one on Antique Roadshow had a Crossroads center; so it may be a untique pattern.
Please write in with your Pine Burr source–pattern sources are of great interest to me.
Thanks, Don Beld
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 08:45:12 -0400 | From: Patricia L Cummings <quiltersmuse@>
Don Beld wrote:
/Although it is claimed that slaves made many quilts, few surviving quilts are documented to actual slaves as opposed to former slaves (like Harriet Powers–my favorite 19th Century quilter)./
Dear Don:
Let me recommend the book, Stitched from the Soul: Slave Quilts from the Antebellum South by Gladys-Marie Fry. I think that you will find it to be an eye-opening experience. There are many quilts and other textiles that have clear links to having been slave-made in the pre-Civil War era, as proven by the number of color photos and information in this beautiful book.
The author is “Professor Emerita of Folklore and English at the University of Maryland at College Park”. She has curated “more than a dozen” exhibitions, and has written other books and show catalogues.
The book is a wonderful tribute to the African American tradition of quiltmaking and came about when the author wanted to learn more about her great-great grandmother who was a slave and a seamstress. It is well worth the look.
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 08:22:33 -0400 | From: “Sondra Biacchi” <quilt@>
Sue…Lovely poem by Sir Walter Scott follows- My Native Land Poem lyrics of My Native Land by Sir Walter Scott.
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d, As home his footsteps he hath turn’d From wandering on a foreign strand! If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no Minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung
Sandra Biacchi
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 11:36:13 -0400 | From: Patricia L Cummings <quiltersmuse@>
Dear Don:
I looked through just a few of my pattern indexes this morning, trying to find a match between any pattern with a published name of “Pine Burr” and the tiny image of a portion of the quilt in question (the image of which I printed from the Antiques Roadshow website). I have not found an exact duplicate.
You are right. The center is very unusual. This may be a one-of-a-kind “Pine Burr” variation.
In this instance, the largest obstacle to researchers is the lack of a “paper trail”, that is, printed sources from the era that we could turn to for reference. The appraiser probably mentioned the name “Pine Burr” because it was the closest configuration she could find. The common factors of many of the blocks called “Pine Burr” that I found in print center (on point) areas, with a square included within the square. The four corners have varying configurations.
For example, in the Carrie Hall Blocks book, a large triangle in each corner is surrounded by sets of half-square triangles, in light and dark colors. The Encyclopedia of Pieced Patterns, #2440, shows the same design. Note that Hall was a twentieth century block collector. The other “Pine Burr” pattern in that book was published by Clara Stone, also an early twentieth century entity in the quilt world (designer).
Page 85 of the Illustrated Index to Traditional American Quilt Patterns shows the same configuration. The recent pattern index, The Quilter’s Block Bible, does not list the pattern at all. Yvonne Khin’s index presents a variation called “The Pine Burr” and published by the Kansas City Star. It features the same idea of half-square triangles. The center has “corners” added. It is still not at all like the image of the Roadshow quilt block.
Of course, the preoccupation with naming quilt blocks is a late nineteenth/early twentieth century phenomenon. It is anyone’s guess, really, what the block or quilt was called by its maker, or if it was given a specific name at all.
I guess if you would like to make it, you may end up drafting your own pattern.
I will let you know if I find out anything more definitive.
Pat Cummings www.quiltersmuse.com
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 11:49:37 -0400 | From: Patricia L Cummings <quiltersmuse@>
Dear friends:
Sometimes my writing amazes even me…. I should say the typos. I will try again with the following sentence:
Stupid Sentence:
/The common factors of many of the blocks called “Pine Burr” that I found in print center (on point) areas, with a square included within the square. The four corners have varying configurations./
Improved Information:
Please read: In many of the print sources, I found that blocks called “Pine Burr” have center (on point) areas, featuring a square within a square. In some instances, instead of half-square triangles and a large center triangle extending to each corner, that entire configuration has been replaced with isoceles trapezoids and fewer triangles. (Please don’t ask which book I saw that in…I don’t remember!!).
Hope you are all having a great Easter!! In between e-mails, I am quilting up a storm. 🙂
Pat
