Description:
Pieced and embroidered, silk quilt done in a Crazy Quilt pattern using silk squares with floral and geometric designs, and embroidered with the initial "LR" in the center block and "Sep 10 1887" in another block. In Nov., 1985, the donor wrote: "The quilt face bearing the initials and date "L.R. 1887" belonged to Evelyn Burrington Coombs Pennegar (b.1885) who gave it to Richard and Jeanne Coombs. Mrs. Pennegar inherited or was given the quilt by her great-aunt, Lucy Robinson through her mother, Flora Jane Burrington Coombs [(b.1858) who married Edwin W. Coombs (b.1853) of Colrain]. Lucy Underwood Robinson (b.1828 d.?), the designer and maker of the quilt, was the older sister of Olive Underwood Burrington (b.1830 d.4-6-1905), who was Flora Jane Burrington Coombs's mother. The Robinsons had no children. Lucy was very close to her sister Olive and to Olive's little girl, Flora Jane. Flora Jane Burrington was a "civil was baby" whose father, Allen Burrington (b.9-16-1829 d.2-24-1905) was a Union soldier and a prisoner in the South for a long time. Flora Jane and her mother lived with Aunt Lucy while he was away. This is the reason that the Coombs family has so many of Aunt Lucy Robinson's things." Crazy quilts were very popular during the last quarter of the 19th century, and particularly strong in the mid 1880s. Silks in satin and velvet weaves, along with many other fancy fabrics, were readily available from mail-order companies, local shops, and stashes of remnants at home. Department stores, including Boston's Jordan Marsh, profited from the fashion by selling bags of scraps for one dollar each, and manufacturers offered ready-to-sew kits. This quilt was pieced by hand and has machine-sewn border seams, and 25 blocks (8 3/4" square) done in multi-colored patterned and plain silk. Formerly numbered F.1016
Subjects:
Textile fabrics; Silk Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+85.086 |
