This quilt was truly love at first sight. I do not buy a lot of old quilts primarily because many are beyond my budget, but this one was different. It was accessible because I was working for the shop owner in San Francisco who was selling this quilt. I walked into work one day and he had it draped over a chair. I was barely in the door when it caught my eye. “Where did you get that quilt?” I was surprised he even had it in the shop because American craft was really not his thing. He happened to buy it from another dealer, and in a round-about way he disclosed a small story about the quilt’s owner having lived in the Bay Area and it boasting a family provenance. There was not much else to convey. So I made a deal with my “boss”. If he would put the quilt on lay-away (unheard of in this shop), I could earn it through my wages. He laughed and granted me the time. It took several months, but the day I took it home on the bus was an unforgettable day!
What I love most about this quilt is the wonderful old fabrics and the quirky way they are matched and sewn. Sometimes I will get this out and just study all the various pieces. It never fails to fascinate.
Some of the pieces are completely deteriorated. The center block has the batting showing around the brown fabric squares, and this has more to do with the particular dye process than any other reason.
I love the back textile and the quilting stitches. There is an interesting history with turkey red. The dye process used madder dyes and involved many complex steps. Most people associate this dye with Turkey, but it was actually a technique that most likely developed in eastern India. Eventually it spread to Turkey as well as Greece. My favorite book on the subject is The Red Dyes by Gosta Sandberg. He says that “through trading with the Turks, the Greeks had a long-time monopoly on the trading of red-dyed cotton products. It was primarily the French trade houses that purchased and resold these dyed ‘Oriental’ products.” As seems to be the case with textile history and evolution, foreigners take their skills to another country, set up a trade, and share their secrets with other tradesmen. The French have always been good at perfecting an art and interpreting it in a refined and brilliant manner. From there it spread to England and eventually the U.S.
This is a close-up of the embroidered initials I found on this quilt. They are hard to decipher, and I realize this photo is inadequate (I will find a better way to use this focus on my camera!). Unfortunately there was no date. Also, notice the machine stitching on the binding.
For future references here are a few books I would recommend:
Clues in the Calico by Barbara Brackman (op)
America’s Printed Fabrics 1770-1890 by Barbara Brackman
The Red Dyes by Gosta Sandberg
Quilts and Coverlets: The Beamish Collection by Rosemary E. Allan
Down by the Old Mill Stream: Quilts in Rhode Island edited by Linda Welters and Margaret T. Ordonez
what an amazing quilt!
I LOVE this quilt and would have done the same thing or went into debt to bring that quilt home!
BB Clues in the Calico is now available as an ebook thru
C and T publishing, check out their website.
http://www.ctpubblog.com/downloads/
I own the book and have to agree with you a much needed book in anyones library!
I don’t have the Red Dyes will have to look into that one
thanks
Kathie
Thank you for the information on these ebooks. I did not know they existed, and that is a great resource to have. The book on red dyes may be out of print too since it was over ten years ago that I purchased it, and since it is so specialized you may have to search for it somewhere other than Amazon. If you need help with this let me know and maybe I can help. Thanks for your nice comments and the information.
Kathie,
I just looked at your blog. What great quilts you have. I will definitely be back. By the way, are you a member of QHL?
yes I am a member of the QHL
I have learned so much from that list
I would have done a dance as well, seeing it for the first time. That is a knock-out quilt. Do you use it on cold winter night? The red dye would make you warmer, no? Enjoyed the info on the dye. Fabric and all the ancillary parts are facinating. Thanks.
It is a funny thing, but I never use any of my old and best quilts on the beds because of my cats. They love them, but with their claws and the delicacy of some of the fabrics I can’t bring myself to put them on the beds. It is a shame because there is nothing nicer than sleeping under a great old quilt!
Drooling over that quilt…
Well. What can I say! What a beautiful treasure. The quilter had such a good eye for colour and pattern, it is a veritable feast for the eyes at every level! The paisley is a brilliant foil for the pieced squares, I adore the little brown tweed or woolen patches, they remind me of a Swedish tailor’s quilt that passed through my hands a few years back, which used a lot of tailor’s suiting samples. Beautiful fabrics as well as utilitarian ones, did I see some ticking stripes in there too? The back is gorgeous, not just flowers, but the ears of corn too. My feeling is that the backing fabric may be French? What do you think the date is? Possibly 1880s to 1920s? It has a kind of Harvest, or maybe a Christmas feel to it! A wonderful winter warmer! Thank you for showing us, a real treat. xx
I am guessing this quilt is maybe 1880′s or 1890′s. This is one piece I want to have appraised. I feel sometimes I should not have it because I can’t use or display it because of my three cats. It simply is too nice a piece to risk tears or snags. I may sell it at some point. I think you are right that the backing fabric is French. Red quilts are nice ones to have. They have a certain warmth and comfort to them.
This is beautiful and I love the story behind it too.
ohhhh ahhhh-lovely!
As your name implies, you must love turkey red too!