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Patchwork Quilts

A selection of

American Patchwork Quilts

from the collection at the Ulster American Folk Park


Emigrants took the tradition of making patchwork to America. Among these emigrants were the people of Ireland with their long tradition of making patchwork. Ideas, patterns and even fabric samples were exchanged across the Atlantic. The emigrant letters home to Ireland, which are held on the database at the museum, tell us that friends and family exchanged fashion ideas and even sent each other fabric samples. In 1814 Mary Cumming, originally from Lisburn, County Down wrote to her sister Margaret Craig back home in Ulster,

'There is a beautiful kind of silk to be got in this country called the French Levantine as soon as I have the opportunity I will send you and Rachel frocks of it for it is not to had with you'.

The Log Cabin pattern is an example of a pattern popular on both sides of the Atlantic. It is thought that Irish emigrant took the pattern to America. It was sometimes called the folded quilt in Ireland but earned the name Log Cabin because it resembled the American tradition of building houses from logs. When fabric was scarce, as it would have been for the early emigrant and a little had to go a long way the Log Cabin pattern is a very good way of using up small pieces of different fabric to create a pleasing pattern in the one quilt.

Log cabin American quilt Log cabin quilt, American, 1870s

The Log Cabin patchwork quilt, pictured above was made in America around 1870. It is made of plain and patterned silk and satin fabric; there are over two thousand pieces of fabric used in the making of this patchwork. Colour is very important in a Log Cabin patchwork, as one side of each square used to make up the patchwork must be dark and the other side light. Some patchwork makers like to use red in the centre of this square as a symbol of the fire glowing in the hearth of the cabin. There are many design possibilities to the Log Cabin. The quilt shown here is called the 'Straight Furrow', the diagonal stripes of dark and light resemble the furrows made by the plough. Another popular Log Cabin pattern is called 'Barn Raising' created by positioning the squares within the Log Cabin at a different angle.

Barn raising

 

Barn raising

 

 

American women liked to name their patchwork patterns from events in their everyday lives. The characteristics of America life can be reflected in quilt names. This picture of the barn raising shows the influence of the emerging barn on the patchwork pattern.

 

This Crazy Patchwork Quilt from the museums collection was made in 1880s by Catherine Walker from Fermanagh.

Catherine Walkes crazy patchwork

Catherine Walker, 1880s, Crazy Patchwork, Ulster American

Catherine emigrated to America in 1890 and it is thought she brought the quilt with her to America. In 1918 Catherine returned to Ireland and married James Robinson from Lisnamallard, Omagh, County Tyrone. Catherine's quilt is a combination of plain and patterned silk fabric.

The quilt was probably made over a period of time, as there are two very distinct styles of fabric in its make up. Perhaps it was finished with fabric scraps she brought back from America. Crazy quilts are the random stitching together of odd bits of cloth and grew out of necessity, it something made out of otherwise useless bits of cloth. In Colonial days when fabric had to be brought from Europe on sailing vessels at huge cost, every piece of fabric was valuable and nothing was wasted. But the Crazy Quilt grew from its humble beginnings and was adopted by Victorian ladies with access to expensive fabric and time on their hands for elaborate embroidery on the surface of the quilt.

This Crazy Quilt from the museum's collection, dated 1884, is an example of this use of embroidered silks and velvets.

Crazy quilt hanging

Crazy quilt hanging, American, 1884

It was probably made as a hanging for a committee meeting. Many of the patches are furthered embroidered with symbols significant to that group.

Crazy quilt hanging detail

Detail from crazy quilt hanging, 1884

 

This crazy quilt from the collection, pictured below, belonged to Annie Parks, (nee Hewitt) who was born at The Birches, Portadown in 1870.

Anne Dugan patchwork

Annie Parks and friend

This quilt is made from brightly coloured plain and patterned silks and part of Annie's quilt is lined with newspaper, with one piece dated 2 November 1887 from the state of New Hampshire.

Annie Parks crazy patchwork

Annie Parks, 1887, crazy patchwork, New Hampshire

Here again there is no planned design in shape or arrangement of colour but Annie's quilt is rich with varied images and embellishments making it very much up to date for the 1870s, a period when Japanese motifs like owls, insects, spider webs, butterflies and fans began appearing everywhere. Annie died in America in 1950.

Annie Parks crazy quilt detail

Detail of Annie Parks's crazy quilt

 

The custom of saving scraps of fabric and stitching them together into something useful has been practised for centuries in many parts of the world. Many quilts took a lifetime to make but most were made out of necessity to keep families warm in the long winter nights. Patchwork quilts are associated almost exclusively to women; they gave months and years to their making, usually in their own home or in that of their neighbour. Many would not have thought of their patchwork as art, but something that was made out of necessity, the utility of the object was what was important, however beautiful quilts emerged from this simple but time consuming household task.

Boxed T quiit from Indiana

Boxed 'T', Indiana, 1900

Perhaps the emotion involved in the making shines through as can be witnessed in this quote from Anonymous Was a Woman by Mirra Bank, this book celebrates the daily experiences and inner lives of 'ordinary' women of the 18th and 19th centuries,

'My whole life is in that quilt. It scares me sometimes when I look at it. All my joys and all my sorrows are stitched into those little pieces. When I was proud of the boys and when I was downright provoked and angry with them. When the girls annoyed me or when they gave me a warm feeling around my heart. And John too, He was stitched into that quilt. Sometimes I loved him and sometimes I sat there hating him as I pieced the patches together. So they are all in that quilt. I tremble sometimes when I remember what that quilt knows about me'.

All kinds of scraps of fabric were used in the making of patchwork even clothes from a relative or child who has died are pieced together as an act of remembrance and healing. A visitor to the museum brought a Log Cabin quilt belonging to her father-in-law. This quilt from Drumquin, Co Tyrone was made up of different fabric belonging to three children who had died of the flu during the epidemic at the beginning of the 20th century.

 

One of the most universally known quilt patterns is the Irish Chain. There are 'Single Irish Chains', 'Double Irish Chains' and 'Triple Irish Chains', they are all alike save for one or two or three rows of blocks that form the chain. The quilt from the museum's collection is a Double Irish Chain and was made in America in the 1890s. This patchwork is quilted in a scroll pattern using five stitches per inch.

Double Irish chain quilt

Double Irish chain, North America, 1890s

 

A quilt was never really regarded as finished until it had been quilted. Quilting combined the three layers of the patchwork top together so that the warm filling of cotton or wool could be held in place sandwiched between the patchwork top and the backing.

Quilt patterns

Designs for Quilting

Quilting was as time consuming as joining the small scraps of fabric to make the patchwork top. At this stage neighbours were called in to help, a custom, which was popular in Ulster as well as America.There was no function more important to the pioneer women than the Quilting Bee. It was the most popular form of female hospitality. Over the quilting frame gossip, news and opinions could be exchanged.Sometimes when a crowd of women got together to quilt a patchwork top the men would be invited along afterwards for supper, singing and dancing. It was said that many a romance started at a quilting party. Stephen Collins Foster the composer published a ballad in the 1850s that went,

'In the sky the bright stars glittered, On the banks the pale moon shone, And 'twas from Aunt Dinah's quiltining party I was seeing Nellie Home'.

 

This Chevron patchwork is made from stripes of wool, silk and velvet in Pennsylvania in the early 1900s. This very practical quilt would have been needed to keep warm in the bitterly cold winters.

Chevron patchwork

Chevron patchwork, American, early 20th century

 

The piecing together of scraps of material and combining layers of fabric together is something that has happened since very early times. Examples of quilted fabric have been found in the tomb of a Pharaoh dating 3400 BC. Joseph's coat of many colours must surely have been patchwork. Heavy quilted fabric was worn as body armour by the armies of William the Conqueror. Quilted bed covers are mentioned in household inventories and accounts throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Patchwork has become the most picturesque of all the American folk arts and can be a reflection of the feelings and attitudes of women throughout centuries.

Rolling stone quilt from Pennsylvania

Rolling stone, Pennsylvania USA, 1910

At the turn of the 20th century Eliza Calvert Obenchain - writing under the name of Eliza Calvert Hall - uses the character Sally Ann to promote women's issues and to expose the hypocrisy of the church in the late Victorian era. She uses the patchwork quilt as a metaphor to get her views across and to offer an insight into the life of women in the 1880s.

'There was a ring of passionate eagerness in the old voice, and she fell to putting away her treasures as if the suggestion of losing them had made her fearful of their safety. I looked again at the heap of quilts. An hour ago they had been patchwork, and nothing more. But now! The old woman's words had wrought a transformation in the homely mass of calico and silk and worsted. Patchwork? Ah, no! It was memory, imagination, history, biography, joy, sorrow, philosophy, religion, romance, realism, life, love, and death; and over all, like a halo, the love of the artist for his work and the soul's longing for earthly immortality'.

Dutch mill rose quilt

Dutch mill rose, American, 1900

Patchwork quilts are more than mere bedcoverings, they can tell the story of the American womans attitude to life.

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