Colorful New York Beauty Top

Recently, several friends alerted me about an eBay auction for a colorful New York Beauty Top. Quilt dealer Mark French of Yellow Springs, Ohio, was selling the top, and if you buy quilts on eBay, I'm sure you've seen his auctions. Mark is a prolific eBay seller known as french72, and I recall buying quilts from him in the past, including a 1940's blue, green and pink Chinese Fans variation on the New York Beauty pattern. He's always got a wide selection of reasonably priced quilts for sale. When I checked out his eBay shop, I found 430 items priced from $100 or less to just under $2900. 

Of course, when I received the note about this quilt top, it was toward the end of the month and I wouldn't be able to pay for it for a week, but Mark was very willing to give me time to pay for it. As soon as December rolled around, we closed the deal and the top arrived in less than a week. I appreciated the great service, and shared information about my web site with Mark. He saw my collection of New York Beauties and variations on the pattern, and told me about a very cool Suspension Bridge quilt he had available, which I've purchased.

This New York Beauty quilt top has a circa date from the 1930's, but I still need to get out the "Dating Fabrics" book to identify the fabrics. It could be a time-span piece, and I'm thinking some of the fabrics could be a bit later.  

One thing's for sure, it's a fabric lover's piece. This pattern wasn't often made with such a wide variety of fabrics until the last quarter of the 20th century, so finding such a scrappy example from the early-to-mid part of the 20th century is exciting. If it turns out to be later, that would be even more exciting for me, because I haven't found a lot of examples made between 1950 and 1990.

Two other characteristics make this top an intriguing find. One is the arched strip of lavender fabric from the inner part of each quarter circle. The second thing is the way the sashing is pieced as an interlocking sawtooth pattern. Both of these characteristics are uncommon and add visual interest to the piece. It is one of only three quilt tops I have in my "New York Beauty" collection, which now includes 30 examples from the mid 19th century to 2010. 

Red and Green - An Evening with the Northwest Quilters

Yesterday morning at 10am, I got a phone call from Tony Haas, President of the Northwest Quilters in Portland. Tony was in a bit of a bind. The surprise presentation planned for the evening meeting had fallen through when the presenter was hospitalized for an emergency back surgery, and he needed someone to step in at the last minute and do a presentation for the group. He was calling to ask if I could help.  

I was honored, glad that he thought of me, and happy to help. I'm a member of the Northwest Quilters, and since I'm not a quilt maker I've tried to find other ways to offer something to the organization. Over the years, I'd spoken to the group several times, most recently in January when I presented six masterpiece quilts. Lately, I've been trying to attend the meetings, bringing quilts from my collection for show and tell. Since I'd planned to attend the meeting anyway, I was more than happy to help out.

In the holiday spirit, the theme for the talk was red and green quilts. So, I selected some quilts, pulled out a few books for reference, and thought about what I would say. When I arrived at the Immanuel Lutheran Church in Sellwood, I thought I'd be early, but there must've been over 100 people already there. The large meeting space was full of quilters and buzzing with activity. Charity quilts and challenge blocks covered the walls, people were milling about visiting with friends and sharing holiday greetings. There was barely a seat to be found. 

Before my talk, the committee chairs presented reports. One after the other, the officers had such wonderful news to report about their activities. Thousands of raffle tickets had been sold, thousands of dollars had been raised, and over a thousand quilts had been made for families in need. The fire department would soon be arriving at the meeting to pick up some of the charity quilts, and we prepared by practicing singing a verse of "Here Comes Santa Claus", which we sang to the firemen when they arrived.

During the break, I set up a quilt stand with the Sprigs of Laurel Medallion quilt, one of my absolute favorite quilts. To me, this quilt feels like the quintessential Christmas holiday quilt, and I knew the group would enjoy the wonderful quilting in it. I left it up for the duration of the meeting because I wanted to give people an opportunity to see it close-up. All of the other quilts were held up, show and tell style, by Tony and the husband of one of the quilters, who we referred to as Mr. Maureen Orr-Eldred.

When I got to the podium, I said I'd been looking forward to the surprise presentation ever since I'd received the newsletter, but I didn't realize the surprise was that I was the one giving the presentation. There were smiles and laughter, and we were off to a good start. I spent a few minutes talking about the Oregon Quilt Project, which will be documenting quilts at the Northwest Quilters show in March, and then talked about the red and green quilts. 

The group of quilts included examples from 1830 to 1940, and I was happy with how the talk went. Even though it was a last-minute thing, I felt prepared. Over the last year, I've immersed myself in quilts, quilt study, research, and documentation. Sharing quilts and their stories, I also looked back to the first time I spoke to the group about 9 years ago, when I had less than a dozen quilts in my collection. Since then, my collection has grown significantly, and I've learned so much. I was thankful to be present, and although I was there to inspire the audience with old quilts, it was the Northwest Quilters who inspired me.

Unusual Princess Feather Block

The Princess Feather pattern was first made in the early 1800's and is most commonly seen in mid-to-late 19th century quilts. It appears most frequently appears in red and green quilts as an eight-bladed motif. The second most common variation is a six-bladed design, and the block is also seen in other color combinations. This block from the Album with Lyre is an uncommon variation, a four-bladed Princess Feather. 

This block is in the fourth row, center, just below the Lyre block. It is made of two fabrics including a fairly common over-dyed green floral print and an uncommon solid oxblood/burgundy/maroon. The blades of the feather are joined in the center with interlocking triangular points, and 21 rounded, finger-like barbs around the edges of each feather.

Each of the four plumes appears to be made from the same template, and the overall shape is like an "x" with curved tips. It is one of several original variations on designs seen in other quilts of the mid-19th century, particularly Baltimore Album and sampler quilts. 

Karen Alexander recently blogged about red and green quilts, and in her blog there are some interesting notes about the Princess Feather, also called Prince's Feather. To read Karen's blog, click here.

So, that leaves just three blocks to blog about in the Album with Lyre, circa 1850, by Mary Couchman Small of Martinsburg, Berkeley County, West Virginia, which was part of Virginia at the time. If you have any questions or would like to see additional close-ups of any of the details in this amazing quilt, please send me a comment. Enjoy!

Scherenschnitte?

The word scherenschnitte means "scissor cut" in German, and is also a term used to describe paper cutting design. Scherenschnitte art work often has symmetry within the design, and common forms include silhouettes, valentines, love letters, and applique quilt designs. The art tradition was founded in Switzerland and Germany in the 16th century, and was brought to colonial America in the 18th century by immigrants who settled primarily in Pennsylvania. 

The two blocks in this blog could be called scherenschnitte. Both designs include elegant, symmetrical shapes that resemble paper cut snowflakes, but these designs may seem like something other than pure scherenschnitte because they include more than one piece of fabric. Some of the most distinctive examples are seen in quilts from Pennsylvania, but also in Hawaiian quilts. 

The first block (pictured, top) is from the second row, second block from the left. The center part of the block is a squared paper cut design made of oxblood/maroon/burgundy fabric. Leaves sprout from the corners, and budding flowers from top, bottom, and both sides. The second block is a unique design, but the central part of the design is actually made from five pieces of matching oxblood/maroon/burgundy fabric. In that regard, it is a fabricated scherenschnitte with seams visible only on close examination. This design has matching, unique green shapes in each of the four corners.

Even though scherenschnitte was prevalent in Pennsylvania quilts of the middle to late 19th century, the influence made its way into other types of quilts, including this album from West Virginia. These two scherenschnitte blocks are also among the most original and unusual designs in the quilt.

For Sally Bramald

Yesterday, I posted a picture of this quilt, an 1840's Sprigs of Laurel Medallion, on my Facebook page. One of my Facebook and Blogger friends, Sally Bramald from Fleet, Hampshire, UK, was interested in seeing detail pictures of the quilting, so I thought I'd take a quick break from the Album with Lyre and post some pictures for Sally.

This quilt is one of the pieces I plan to show when I speak at the Quilter's Affair in Sisters next summer. I am doing an evening lecture on old quilts, and a classroom talk called "eBay-O-Rama", about the wild world of eBay. The Sprigs of Laurel medallion is one of the most sensational eBay bargains I've ever had. The quilt came from Baltimore, and I won it with a bid of $419! The quilting is really wonderful!!

The outermost white square bar is mostly ferns

The next white square bar toward center is mostly botanical

The botanical quilting is mostly done in double-lines

Another detail of the fern quilting, outer white bar

The outer red bar is chevron-like

Botanical double-line quilting in the circular ring around the center

More detail from the ring around the center, and diamond grid in the red

Detail from the center medallion with sprigs of laurel applique

More detail from the ring around the medallion, there are pencil marks!

More detail from the ring around the medallion

Fern detail from the corner of the outer white square bar

More fern detail from the outer white square bar

More double-line botanical detail from the inner square bar

That's all for now, but I hope you've all enjoyed these pictures. Sally happens to be an extraordinarily good, award-winning machine quilter. I wonder if these designs will inspire her...

A Bird in the Coxcomb...

I was curious about the coxcomb block on the Album with Lyre quilt, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. Here's what the entry said:

Celosia is a small genus of edible and ornamental plants, similar in appearance to amaranths. They are sometimes called cockscombs or woolflowers. The name itself refers to the plant's brilliant appearance and striking flame-like flower heads, which resemble cockscombs, the anatomical part of a male foul. The name "cockscomb" may be restricted to those whose flower heads are crested by fasciation - a condition of plant growth in which the apical meristem, normally concentrated around a single point, producing approximately cylindrical tissue, becomes elongated perpendicularly to the direction of growth, producing flattened, ribbon-like, crested, or elaborately contorted tissue.

Red cockscomb flowers, picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

In the world of quilts, we commonly see the word spelled as "coxcomb", and the word also refers to the cap of a court jester (obsolete), a foolish, or conceited person or "dandy", and the fleshy red pate of a rooster. It is a recognizable motif in quilts because of the way it is depicted, and is often seen in the red and green quilts of the mid-19th century.

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." The block gave me a reason to explore the origins of this well-known proverb, and I learned it refers back to medieval falconry, where a bird in the hand (the falcon) was a valuable asset and certainly worth more than two in the bush (the prey). The earliest citation of the expression in print, in its currently used form, is found in John Ray's "A Hand-book of Proverbs" from 1670.

The block is from the fourth row of the Album with Lyre, far right, and actually faces sideways with the bird in the lower left corner of the block. I've rotated the image for easier viewing. This block is the only one with a bird, or any creature, and it also appears in this quilt's "sister" quilt made by Harriet Small, daughter of Mary Couchman Small. These two quilt makers obviously worked from shared patterns, even though they didn't always do them exactly the same way.

Whenever I look at pictures of the two quilts side-by-side, this block is one of the elements that really jumps out. A bird in the coxcomb may be worth two in the bush, but these two quilts, made by the same family, are priceless.

Five Symmetrical Blocks

Today's blog includes five blocks from the Album with Lyre, and once again, I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to call these blocks. I started looking through the Encyclopedia of Applique by Barbara Brackman. Maybe I will find some leads there, but not much progress to report thus far. 

The five blocks all share something in common. They are all wonderfully symmetrical. The first block (pictured, top) is from the third row, second from the left. The flowers look like lilies, sprouting from an eight-pointed star that also appears to have cactus flowers sprouting from it. This block is another favorite of mine.

The second block is from the top row, second from the left, and looks like a Rose of Sharon wreath. The leaves surrounding the center flower are the same shape as the elements I've called cactus flowers in the first block. This block is actually one of my least favorite. It seems very ordinary compared to many of the other blocks.

The third block is from the second row, second from the right, and is one of the most simple blocks on the quilt. The shapes sprouting from the center flower look like pineapples, but could also be leaves.

The fourth block is also from the second row, far right, and has leaves alternating with a four-pointed oxblood/burgundy/maroon shape that is crowned with cheddar orange. In the center is what I'd call a pinched square in a circle, similar to a cathedral window quilt motif. 

The fifth block is from the fourth row, second from the left, and is four pomegranates sprouting from a flower. The flower looks like a Rose of Sharon without a center disc. Stylistically, the symmetry present in all five blocks seems to connect them, and I love how the echo quilting follows the designs. If any readers have corrections or ideas about what to call these five symmetrical designs, please feel free to comment. Enjoy!!