Welcome to the Family!

Rocky Mountain variation, c. 1870

A new family member arrived today, but it wasn't a baby. It was in fact older than any of our oldest living relatives. This quilt, a variation on the pattern most widely known as New York Beauty, was made around 1870 and came from Cindy Rennels in Oklahoma. She had gotten it from a dealer in Texas many years ago, and recently released it from her personal stash. The reason why I refer to it as a new family member is that it joins almost 50 other "New York Beauty" quilts in my collection. That's a pretty big family, considering there are only about 100 New York Beauty quilts on the Quilt Index.

Today, I decided to test the Julie Silber method of displaying quilts at lectures, which Julie has attributed to her partner, Jean Demeter. They use tables propped up at an angle, wrapped in Hobbs 80/20 black batting. "Easy up, easy down," as she says. While the quilt was up, I took a few pictures and had a usable image in no time. The loft space where I took the picture will soon serve as a home quilt lab, for examining, documenting and photographing quilts. It's not a huge space, but it's workable.

Back to the quilt: if you look at the design, you'll notice the cornerstones are miniature versions of the blocks - spiked quarter-circles wedged in the corners of a parallelogram. I've never seen it done this way before. The arcs of the cornerstones connect to the sashing strips in a way that creates the illusion of blocks with curved corners.

Also worth noting is the tan fabric and the dense, decorative quilting. The tan fabric was originally another color, most likely an over-dyed green. Over time, it appears the blue faded out of it. The color may have changed, but the masterful quilting remains intact. Love it, love it, love it! Welcome to the family!!