Wednesday 26 May 2010

treasure


In the post this rainy autumn afternoon are these three pieces of treasure, bought on Etsy the other day. The seller tells me they are cut from a civil war patchwork from the late 1800s and I love imagining where and by whom they were sewn, where the fabrics were bought, where the fabrics were printed. The little half square triangles of this vintage quilt are only about an inch high and are hand pieced on the reverse side with the most even tiny stitches.

I've been poring over the fabrics looking the different styles up in my wonderful Textile Designs reference book which I bought last year at Kinokuniya. The patchwork includes madder prints - dyed with the madder plant, neats - simple small scale florals, and maybe some Cinnamon pinks and Half-mourning prints.

4 comments :

  1. wow,

    you just want to hold it to your ear and listen for the sound..

    or touch it whike falling asleep till you dream it..

    tel us where on etsy!

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  2. Ohhhh, that IS a treasure!

    You know what you would love? The Quilts exhibition at the V&A in London. Love it. Although, there's not touching the quilts! ;-)

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  3. gosh - thought for a moment that you had been handstitching the quilting! just contemplating beginning my first (machine-made) one and trying to get my head around all the work involved...this just about blows my mind to think of. obviously made by someone infinitely more patient than me!

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  4. indeed treasure! its beautiful x

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Thank you for dropping by and commenting :-)