April 26 – 29, 2000
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:
- Tracing and Reproducing Antique Quilting Designs — A detailed thread on copying old quilting patterns with mylar and clear plastic sheeting draws input from quilt author Pepper Cory herself.
- Fabric Identification, Paper Piecing, and a Proposed Dating Workbook — Members puzzle over an unfamiliar “Cortley Fabrics” label and discuss keeping a structured log of fabric purchases as a future dating reference. (see the article on dating quilts)
- A Guild Talk on Dating Antique Quilts and Durham Wholecloth — A recap of a presentation to a Maryland guild touches on English wholecloth quilting traditions. (see the article on quilting in Europe)
- The MacArthur Quilt Debate: Profit and Provenance — The ongoing eBay quilt controversy turns to questions of resale rights and the meaning of its “In war time, 1863” inscription.
- Collecting China Half-Figure Pincushion Dolls — A member shares a reference book for identifying antique sewing-related pincushion dolls.
- Preserving a Decades-Old Wedding Veil — A bride-to-be asks how to remove decades of creasing from an heirloom tulle veil before her daughter’s wedding. (see the article on repair, restore, or conserve)
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 22:21:19 -0500 | From: “quilt97” <quilt97@>
Laura and others,
Please explain a little more about developing a fabric dating workbook. Do you recommend saving a small piece of every fabric? Listing date, where purchased, price? What else? I had never thought of doing this . . . but now it seems like it makes sense to do this for all fabrics, not only vintage.
Thanks!
EKarenbeth
Ok, ok…..I wasn’t going to jump in here…..too many irons in the fire this week (namely scorched fabric!) But…….we do have a pretty good article in the VQTS newsletter on Developing a Fabric Dating Workbook.20 Do use archival quality top loading page protectors. They keep the fabric tight enough in place so that it doesn’t fly across the room, but open at the top so air can get in. Like Julia, I too roll larger pieces, usually wrapped in muslin, over a muslin covered tube….You can also get archival quality pages for slides and 3×5 photos that are great for smaller swatches……like the 3×3 squares from Benartex or Mary Koval <G> slide holders work great for those GMFG pieces or DWR arch slices!
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 07:59:44 -0400 | From: Alan Kelchner <quiltfix@>
Jean,
That method of paper piecing a grandmothers flower garden is typical of that style – English paper piecing, if memory serves me. There’s really no sense in cutting all those hexagons if the paper’s already cut. Basting the fabric to the paper makes the hand piecing easier, and utilizes the paper to shape the fabric into hexagons.
Alan
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 08:05:53 -0500 | From: “Patricia Jochimsen” <pjchmsn@>
I have a collection of these half dolls and one resource that I have is “China Half-figures called Pincushion Dolls” by Frieda Marion. copyright is 1974, but the source is Collector Books, Paducah, Kentucky. It does give some of the history of the dolls. But, as you have found, most information is out of print. This is from a country woman’s newspaper (Capper’s Weekly) this last year by Patricia Hobbs Hendry……. “Most dolls start out as toys and later become collectibles. But china half-figures or pincushion dolls were never meant to be playthings. From the late 1800’s until the 1930’s, these fanciful decorations graced the vanities of women across Europe and America.
These figures served as handles for powder puffs, bottles, bon-bon dishes and shoehorns. They topped lamps, pincushions, tea cozies and even telephones.
The charming half-dolls were embellished with ribbons and flowers. Many held fans or musical instruments. They wore hats or bonnets, or had curls patterned after European court ladies. There were even a few flappers with bobbed hair, or in cloche hats. Hundreds of different models were sold in mail-order catalogs or in the needlework departments of stores. These ceramic figures had sew-holes at their bases so they could be attached to silk or lace skirts and decorated with ribbons and rosettes. Some of the dolls had trademarks from the manufacturer including W. Goebel, the maker of the Hummel figures. However many of the dolls were unmarked. Copies were made in Japan, but these figures were usually of lower quality than those made in Europs.
For collectors, the general condition, quality and style of these figures determine their value. There are three basic styles of dolls. The most common and least expensive doll is one that was made from a two piece mold. A doll of this style has a seam on both sides of the body and up over the head. The arms and hands are held along the body. In the second style, the arms are held away from the body and the hands return to the body, leaving a space in between. The hand usually rests on the hair, a hat, or a fan or the hip. This style is also made in a two-piece mold. The third and most expensive tyle features arms held away from the body. The arms were cast separately and fastened onto the doll later. These figures often have flowers in their hands.
A collection of these dolls or just one on a dressing table along with an antique mirrow and brush set, a hatpin holder and an atomizer provide a Victorian look.”
I hope this has been of interest to you.
patricia in wi pjchmsn@
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 12:12:21 EDT | From: JQuilt@
one of the old fabric scraps that i received has Cortley Fabrics Cone Mills Inc….were they a large fabric manufacturer at one time?
jean
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 22:03:58 -0500 | From: “Hope Seider” <hseider@>
Hi, —
I have a question about using an older wedding veil.
My DD is getting married next year and wants to wear my very long veil. DH and I have been married 28 years, and I preserved my veil by wrapping it in a cotton sheet and keeping it in a drawer. This afternoon got it out, held it over the balcony railing in the great room, shook it out well, and laid it on her bed here (she is living in an apartment at college). The tulle is not yellowed and is still supple but is pretty wrinkled. Will the wrinkles eventually come out without steaming it? I’d be interested in hearing any experiences with older tulle. I don’t want to do anything to damage it.
My mother still has her waist-length veil, but it is ruined. She and my dad will have been married fifty years next year. When she got it out of the cedar chest last week, wrapped in plastic, it was just a wad of broken netting. I know that wood and plastic are two of the worst things you can use to preserve fabric. However, my wedding dress of satin with an overlay of silk organza was also in the cedar chest, wrapped in thin blue plastic from the dry cleaners, and it looks white and like new. It could be worn today without being cleaned. My grandmother and I made it in 1972 on her Montgomery Ward sewing machine that had originally been a treadle and had the motor attached at some point. It had been her mother’s machine, and I have it upstairs. I further have my great-grandmother’s wedding jacket. It has a lined blouse made of cotton lace attached to the short, waist-length golden brown jacket. We don’t have the skirt. She was married in 1901 and died in 1928.
Great-Grandma was very tiny! <g>
Hope in SW Missouri
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 23:02:36 -0400 | From: “J. G. Row” <Judygrow@>
>Do you recommend saving a small piece of every fabric? Listing date, where purchased, price? What else? I had never thought of doing this . . . but now it seems like it makes sense to do this for all fabrics, not only vintage.
>Thanks!
>EKarenbeth
Hi,
For my newer swatches I try to collect the part of the selvedge that has the manufacturer name and even the designer, or the name of the line. Very few are dated in the selvedge, although some are, so I date them as to the date I bought them (or my friends bought them — they are instructed to save me those pieces along the slevedges.) I cut these 4″ by 8″ or longer. Then I fold them if I have to to 8″ and overlap them on a sheet of cover stock before inserting them into page protectors. I zig-zag them down to the page, usually 6 to a page. You can sort them by style, or color — whichever you prefer.
It is such fun! This kind of a book will be very valuable to your granddaughter when she becomes a quilt historian.
I also try to keep the Hancock of Paducah catalogs, or Keepsake Quilting’s big catalogs. That will give some idea of price every year, so I don’t have to remember the price of every purchase I make.
Judy in Ringoes, NJ judygrow@
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 08:26:29 -0500 | From: Jocelyn <Jocelynm@>
> The very simple understated line written on the ‘Dear Jane’ 1863 Jane Stickle quilt comes to mind. ‘In war time. 1863.’ Those few words are very sobering and say so much.
Jan,
But, alas, we don’t know what Jane meant by them, or why they’re so cryptic. Was she just looking for a short phrase to describe her times, or was she too grieved to say more?
One of the family ‘heirlooms’ that was fought over by my sister and me (until I won heheheheh)
was our father’s Order of Neptune. This is an award given to a person as they cross the equator for the first time. It usually follows a silly initiation, where sailors have to ‘kiss the beautiful mermaid’ and other stunts. My father’s was granted in 1943. On the certificate, which has beautiful illustrations of King Neptune and his court, there is a blank for the longitude. On Dad’s, it says ‘Censored (A Mission of War)’. My father is still mystified as to why two of his daughters were BOTH determined to end up with the certificate. <G> My sister wanted it for the ‘war shrine’…a corner of her house where she’s preserved the military papers of both our and her husband’s families’ veterans. But I wanted it because I see it as a wonderful triumph of the human spirit… that even amid a war, the US Navy was recognizing the importance of carrying on rituals and having fun. The latitude had to be censored, but there was still time to kiss the beautiful mermaid.
So I wonder, was Jane celebrating that despite the war, she still had beauty in her life?
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 08:26:31 -0500 | From: Jocelyn <Jocelynm@>
I
> wonder if the buyer realizes that the rights to profit from quilt sales (capitalism)
> have been and are protected by American troops throughout the years and different presidential terms of office.
Carla,
It seems to me that we all owe a huge debt of gratitude to other groups, but we’re not expected to repay each and every one. For example, look at the influence that teachers, doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters, and religious leaders have had on most of us. But if I found a quilt that was made to honor a person in one of those categories, however famous that person might be, I wouldn’t necessarily feel it was my duty to purchase it and donate it to a museum in their honor. It would be a nice thing to do, yes.
And if I felt like that person’s actions were wrong? I admit, I don’t completely understand absolute pacifists, but I’ve known a few. To them, a war museum is a museum to absolutely wrong actions. OTOH, I think they would also have refused to purchase and sell such memorabilia…so I wonder if this vendor is actually taking the moral high ground. <G>
> I simply resented the intimation that West Point wasn’t a worthy site for the MacArthur quilt, though the maker so surely poured her heart into the work.
I think the point was more that the West Point musuem shouldn’t exist at all (nor should any military museum), not that it was unworthy of the quilt. Again, I don’t support the viewpoint…but I know people who WOULD say that any museum that implies that war is anything but completely wrong in all situations, is a museum that they would not care to support.
> P.S. Does anyone else feel that individual collectors are frequently priced out of ebay bidding? It’s very frustrating to be outbid by buyers with “300”
> (purchases) by their name.
I’ve bought things on the eBay. I think that my main problem is that my tastes outstrip my budget.
Yes, a lot of the people with 300+ after their names, are other vendors…but then, some of them are individuals who’ve bought a lot of trinkets…or who have SOLD a lot of trinkets. I have some friends who sell ‘collectibles’, in large volume, on eBay, but should they come into the Antique Quilt area, they’d retail their stars for having sold a lot of trinkets, but they’d still be only a novice quilt buyer, and only one individual.
IMO, it varies a lot from time to time- sometimes I find things going dirt cheap…
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 14:20:48 -0400 | From: “John Cawley” <cawley@>
I was talking to the Friendly Circle Guild in Ellicott City, MD yesterday about dating antique quilts. Members had been asked to bring quilts from their collections for Show and Tell. What we had to look out was amazing.
One woman had two Durham quilts, those beautiful wholecloth quilts from the north of England that Dorothy Osler has written about. The quilting motifs were incredible, whorls and coils that I can only compare to Celtic runes. The quilts were well-used, but still beautiful. One was actually a very large pieced star surrounded by a series of plain borders. It had once been pink and white and is now two shades of white. The other was gold on one side and ashes-of-roses on the other. I would love to trace off those quilting designs. The owner was given the quilts by her mother-in-law who was about to throw them away.
Another woman showed us a quilt her grandmother had made. The maker, an African American woman from southern Virginia, had used feedsack as plain strips between box-in-a-box blocks made of various scraps of plaids and calico. It was a great example of the strip constructions which all the writers about African American quilts refer to. It was much more controlled than many similar quilts I’ve seen. The back was home dyed feedsacks with the printing still visible. A wonderful quilt–real folk art! The third amazing thing was a really tacky looking nine patch tied quilt. The woman who owns it had brought other, beautiful family quilts, but the ugly one was the really interesting piece. She had realized that there was another quilt used as batting for the 9-Patch. When she began to untie it she found that the filler was a pristine baby quilt, very nicely quilted bowties in blues and white, and pieces of several other older quilts. The maker of the 9-Patch was her great aunt whose only child had died at birth early in the 20th century. The unused baby quilt had been made by the baby’s grandmother (the present owner’s great grandmother). The owner who had loads of information about both quiltmakers has decided to leave the piece as it is with enough of the top untied to show what is inside. I suggested that she duplicate the unused baby quilt and keep the two together.
There are so many amazing discoveries to be made. I love talking to people about quilts.
Cinda on the Eastern Shore
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 15:07:50 EDT | From: QuiltFixer@
In a message dated 4/28/00 11:17:17 AM Pacific Daylight Time, cawley@ writes:
<< There are so many amazing discoveries to be made. I love talking to people about quilts.
Cinda on the Eastern Shore >>
Dear Cinda isn’t this what it is all about? 🙂 We, who love the history of quilts, love talking to people about them. I just finished talking to a lady in Minnesota who called me about my Redwork quilts and patterns, and we ended up talking for an hour including a long conversation about our mutual love of 1930s quilts and fabric! What a happy hour that was for both of us. I am sure all the members of this list are saying “me, too!” Thanks for sharing this with us.
Toni B.
QuiltFixer@
The Redwork Lady redworkldy@aol www.redworklady.com
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 21:19:17 -0500 | From: KAREN BUSH <“Birdsong@”@worldnet.>
I think, when I read this, my initial thought was “even” in war time. She still managed to keep her own ‘therapy’…her quilt going, and finish it; And managed to hang ON to it! kb
‘In war time. 1863.’
—
See who I am and what I do:
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/karenbush/
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 23:57:03 -0400 | From: “J. G. Row” <Judygrow@>
>One woman had two Durham quilts, those beautiful wholecloth quilts from the north of England that Dorothy Osler has written about. The quilting motifs were incredible, whorls and coils that I can only compare to Celtic runes. One was actually a very large pieced star surrounded by a series
of plain >borders. I would love to trace off those quilting designs. Last September, at Quilt Restoration Conference we used large sheets of tracing paper to trace off the applique designs of “dead” quilts in order to make them anew, resurrect them, so to speak.
I think if I owned a very much alive quilt I’d not want anyone to come near it with a pencil of any sort — I know how easily the tracing paper was punctured.
I am wondering which would be the more likely to damage a quilt — doing it with tracing paper and pencil, or, the following……. Put your copy paper UNDER the quilt on a soft surface. Then use a straight pin and go through the quilt, through the quilting lines, or along the edge of the applique to puncture holes in your paper, therefore getting the design onto the paper.
What would conservators think about that method? It would be like sewing, but without thread. Inquiring minds want to know.
Judy in Ringoes, NJ judygrow@
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 20:59:25 +0000 | From: Bobbie Aug <qwltpro@>
Judy,
What if the fabric was brittle?
Bobbie Aug
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 00:25:33 -0400 | From: “J. G. Row” <Judygrow@>
Bobbie,
You are right, of course. Neither method would be appropriate. So, how can it be done? The only other way I can think of would be to shoot a slide and hope you can project it to the right size without distortion. Manipulating the quilt into a copier would also be an awful no-no.
Or hire my husband who can do all of this stuff, freehand, with no other tools.
Judy in Ringoes, NJ judygrow@
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 04:34:00 -0400 | From: Lynn and Debbie Cupp <lcupp@>
Pepper Cory discusses preserving these historic quilting patterns in her book “Mastering Quilt Marking”. It can be done safely without marks on the quilt. She showed us how in a class by the same name (her crash course version of the book) at MidAtlantic Quilt Festival 1999.
Debbie Cupp
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 07:50:45 -0400 | From: “John Cawley” <cawley@>
Pepper Cory in her recent book on quilting offers a method of tracing designs from old quilts using mylar (I think). The book is upstairs; I’ll find it after the weekend and report back. It sounded good to me. This is Garden Week in MD and I’m spending the next two days getting a look at some of those houses with drives so long you can’t see the house except from the water–how the other half lives!
Cinda on the Eastern Shore
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 08:10:20 +0400 | From: Xenia Cord <xecord@>
Jumping in here, may I offer a suggestion used by Pepper Cory? She uses heavy clear plastic upholstery sheeting, available at Joann Fabrics among others. Checks it carefully for any microscopic holes, lays it over the design to be traced, and marks lightly on the plastic with a water-soluble marker.
Xenia
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 10:08:42 -0400 | From: Judy White <jawhite@>
When doing restoration, I have copied quilting lines onto tracing paper very carefully and never have gone through the paper; but the idea of making holes in the tracing paper with pins is interesting, and I don’t know why it wouldn’t work. I guess I’ll put that on my list of things to try.
Judy White – Ct
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 10:14:28 -0400 | From: “pepper cory” <pepcory@>
Hello all-
Tracing off old quilting designs has been one of my passions and over the years, I have collected a small library of designs. As per previous posts, there’s a chapter specifically on this subject in Mastering Quilt Marking.It’s titled “Preserving a Design Found on an Old Quilt” and begins on page 53 of the book. I have seen (and done-)the tracing paper method and do not recommend it. I once gave permission to a lady to trace off designs from one of my old quilts and sure enough, she poked the pencil through the tracing paper and marked on the quilt. The plastic (mylar) comes on rolls in stores (think Wally World, Joanne’s, K-Mart) and is often sold as picnic table covering or temporary storm window coverings. Being able to see through to the exact stitches makes for more accuracy and the authentic recording of the designs.
I started to salivate when I read about those two old Durham quits–don’t let those get away without recording the designs! Durham quilters usually designed their own templates, even if they were using traditional motifs like feathers. An individual quilter’s style could be recognized by those motifs (“Sarah always makes those long teardrop feathers…”) and most Durham quilters didn’t sign or label their quilts since everybody ‘knew’
who’d made them by the style.
Cheers on a sunny Saturday from the Carolina coast-
Pepper Cory
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 12:46:27 -0400 | From: “J. G. Row” <Judygrow@>
I have the book, and will check there again. I find the older I get the less I can retain in my little green (or is that grey) cells. Mine are definitely green with mold!
Mylar? Didn’t I post a couple of days ago that I have a virtually endless supply? DUH!!!!!
My house can NOT be seen from Back Brook, which is on the other side of Back Brook Road, but I’ll be in the garden scene as well — my own, helping DH build a dry stone wall.
Judy in Ringoes, NJ judygrow@
