Description:
Appliqued, cotton quilt with an original design of stuffed roses and scrolling vine in red and green with a four-branched center and outer vine border on a white ground, which is inscribed ?"Ellen B. H--dels"? on the back corner. The quilt has a straight applied, twill tape binding; four-piece, plain weave, white cotton backing; cotton batting; and stipple quilting in wavy, parallel lines at 9 quilting stiches per inch, which helps to make the design stand out. The use of red and green enjoyed great popularity between the 1830s and 1890. The state of dye technology at this time helped make the physical survival of red and green quilts possible. "Turkey" red, initially a dye process using the roots of the madder plant, was perfected in the Ottoman empire of the eastern Mediterranean area. By the mid 18th century, English and French textile printers used this multi-step technique to produce a fast color. While it tended to fade to a strawberry pink, it did not bleed onto other fabrics in a pieced design. Greens used in pre-Civil War quilts often were produced in a two-step process (over-dyeing blue and yellow) using both mineral and vegetable sources, which tended to fade to blue or tan.
Subjects:
Textile fabrics; Cotton Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+F.762 |
