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T HE date of the quilt’s advent into America is unknown, and—because of the lack of knowledge concerning the house furnishings of the early colonists—can never be positively determined. Quilts were in such general use and were considered as such ordinary articles that the early writers about family life in the colonies neglected to mention them. We do know, however, that quilted garments, bedspreads, curtains, and the like were very essential to the comfort and well-being of the original settlers along the Atlantic seaboard.
Extensive investigation has shown that the introduction of the arts of patchwork and quilting to the American continent is due entirely to the English and the Dutch. No evidence has been found that Spanish or French colonists made use of quilting. The Spaniards in the warm lands of the South had little real need of warm clothing, and—outside of possible appliqué heraldic devices on the coats of the early explorers—may be considered as having brought to the New World none of the art so popular in Spain at the time. The French who opened up Canada brought none of the quilting or patchwork of France with them. While needlework was taught at a very early date in the convents of Quebec, it was apparently only the more fanciful kinds of embroidery. As a protection against the biting northern winters, the early French settlers sought protection under furs, which could be obtained quite readily in the great woods. To secure more bed clothing, it was very much easier to engage in a little hunting than to go through the laborious processes of piecing and quilting. To both Spanish and French, the new world was strictly a man’s country—to adventure in and win riches upon which to retire to a life of ease in their native lands. With them, therefore, the inspiration of founding a home and providing it with the comforts of life was lacking; and without such inspiration the household arts could never flourish.
The English and Dutch planted their colonies along the coast from Virginia to Massachusetts with the primary object of founding new homes for themselves. With them came their wives and daughters, who brought along as their portion such household comforts and conveniences as they possessed. Under their willing hands spinning, weaving, and the manufacture of garments began immediately. Their poorly heated log houses made necessary an adequate supply of bedding and hangings for protection against the winter cold. Substantial, heavy curtains, frequently lined and quilted, were hung over both doors and windows and were kept closely drawn during the bitter winter nights. In the more imposing homes were silk damask curtains with linings of quilted silk to keep out the drafts of cold that swept through the rooms.
In Massachusetts in the early colonial days quilted garments, especially petticoats, were in general use. It is a curious circumstance that we owe this bit of information largely to the description of runaway slaves. The Boston News Letter of October, 1707, contains an advertisement describing an Indian woman who ran away, clad in the best garments she could purloin from her mistress’s wardrobe: “A tall Lusty Carolina Indian Woman, named Keziah Wampun Had on a striped red, blue and white Home-spun Jacket and a Red one, a Black and quilted White Silk Crape Petticoat, a White Shift and also a blue with her, and a mixt Blue and White Linsey Woolsey Apron.” In 1728 the News Letter published an advertisement of a runaway Indian servant who, wearied by the round of domestic drudgery, adorned herself in borrowed finery and fled: “She wore off a Narrow Stript pinck cherredary Gown turned up with a little floured red and white Callico. A Stript Home-spun quilted petticoat, a plain muslin Apron, a suit of plain Pinners and a red and white flowered knot, also a pair of green stone earrings, with white cotton stockings and leather heel’d wooden shoes.”
A few items in a list of articles ordered from England for a New England bride, Miss Judith Sewall, who was married in 1720, give some idea of what was considered as a suitable wedding outfit during that period. The bride belonged to a rich family and no doubt had furnishings much more extensive than usual: “A Duzen of good Black Walnut Chairs, A Duzen Cane Chairs, and a great chair for a chamber, all black Walnut. One Duzen large Pewter Plates, new fashion, a Duzen Ivory-hafted knives and forks. Four Duzen small glass salt cellars, Curtains and Vallens for a Bed with Counterpane, Head Cloth, and Tester made of good yellow watered camlet with Trimming. Send also of the same camlet and trimming as may be enough to make cushions for the chamber chairs. A good fine larger Chintz quilt, well made.” This list also includes such items as kitchen utensils, warming pans, brass fenders, tongs, and shovels, and “four pairs of large Brass candlesticks.”
As the resources of the new country were developed, the women were given some respite from their spinning, weaving, and garment making. Much of their hard-won leisure was spent piecing quilts. In the rigorous climate of bleak New England there was great need of warm clothing and bedding, and the spare moments of the housekeeper were largely occupied in increasing her supply. To make the great amount of bedding necessary in the unheated sleeping rooms, every scrap and remnant of woollen material left from the manufacture of garments was saved. To supplement these, the best parts of worn-out garments were carefully cut out, and made into quilt pieces.
Beautiful, even gorgeous, materials were imported for costumes of the wives and daughters of the wealthy colonists. There may be a greater variety of fabrics woven to-day, but none is more splendid in texture and colour than those worn by the stately ladies of colonial times. The teachings of the strict Puritans advocated plainness and simplicity of dress; even the ministers in the churches preached against the “sinfulness of display of fine raiment.” Notwithstanding the teachings and pleadings of the clergy, there was great rivalry in dress among the inhabitants of the larger colonial towns. “Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,” was unnecessary advice to give to the rich colonist or to his wife. Men’s attire was also of costly velvets lined with handsome brocades; beautifully embroidered waistcoats, silk stockings, and gold lace trimmings were further additions to their costumes during the pre-Revolutionary period.
After these gay and costly fabrics had served their time as wearing apparel, they were carefully preserved and made over into useful articles for the household. The pinch of hard times during the struggle for independence made it imperative for many well-to-do families to economize. Consequently, in many old patchwork quilts may be found bits of the finest silks, satins, velvets, and brocades, relics of more prosperous days.
Alice Morse Earle, in her charming book on “Home Life in Colonial Days,” gives us a rare insight into our great-grandmothers’ fondness for patchwork, and how highly they prized their bits of highly coloured fabrics:
“The feminine love of colour, the longing for decoration, as well as pride in skill of needlecraft, found riotous expression in quilt making. Women revelled in intricate and difficult patchwork; they eagerly exchanged patterns with one another; they talked over the designs, and admired pretty bits of calico and pondered what combinations to make, with far more zest than women ever discuss art or examine high art specimens together to-day. There was one satisfactory condition in the work, and that was the quality of cottons and linens of which the patchwork was made. Real India chintzes and palampores are found in these quilts, beautiful and artistic stuffs, and the firm, unyielding, high-priced, ‘real’ French calicoes.
“Portions of discarded uniforms, old coat and cloak linings, brilliantly dyed worn flannel shirts and well-worn petticoats were component parts of quilts that were needed for warmth. A magnificent scarlet cloak, worn by a Lord Mayor of London and brought to America by a member of the Merrit family of Salisbury, Massachusetts, went through a series of adventures and migrations and ended its days as small bits of vivid colour, casting a grateful glory and variety on a patchwork quilt in the Saco Valley of Maine.
“Around the outstretched quilt a dozen quilters could sit, running the whole together with fanciful set designs of stitchery. Sometimes several quilts were set up, and I know of a ten days’ quilting bee in Narragansett in 1752.”
The women who came from Holland to make their homes on the narrow island at the mouth of the Hudson were housekeepers of traditional Dutch excellence. They delighted in well-stocked linen closets and possessed unusual quantities of sheets, pillow cases, and bedding, mostly of their own spinning and weaving. Like their English neighbours to the north, in Connecticut and Massachusetts, they adopted quilted hangings and garments for protection against the severity of winter. Their quilted petticoats were the pride and joy of these transplanted Hollanders, and in their construction they exerted their highest talents in design and needlework. These petticoats, which were worn short enough to display the home-knitted hose, were thickly interlined as well as quilted. They were very warm, as the interlining was usually of wool. The fuller the purse, the richer and gayer were the petticoats of the New Amsterdam dames.
While not so strict in religious matters as their Puritan neighbours, the early inhabitants of New Amsterdam always observed Sunday and attended church regularly. Within the fort at the battery stood the church, built of “Manhattan Stone” in 1642. Its two peaked roofs with the watch-tower between was the most prominent object of the fortress. “On Sunday mornings the two main streets, Broadway and Whitehall, were filled with dignified and sedate churchgoers arrayed in their best clothes. The tucked-up panniers worn by the women displayed to the best advantage the quilted petticoats. Red, blue, black, and white were the favourite and predominating colours, and the different materials included fine woollen cloth, camlet, grosgrain silk, and satin. Of all the articles of feminine attire of that period the quilted petticoat was the most important. They were worn short, displaying the low shoes with high heels and coloured hose with scarlet clockings; silken hoods partially covered their curled and powdered hair; altogether a charming and delightful picture.”
The low, flat land of South Manhattan lying along the Hudson, because of its similarity to their mother country, was a favourite dwelling-place in New Netherlands. This region, known as Flatbush, was quickly covered with Dutch homes and big, orderly, flourishing gardens. A descendant of one of the oldest Dutch families which settled in this locality, Mrs. Gertrude Lefferts Vanderbilt, in her book, “The Social History of Flatbush,” has given many interesting details of early New York life. She tells of the place quilt making held in the community, and how the many intricate patterns of patchwork pleasantly occupied the spare moments of the women, thus serving as a means of expression of their love of colour and design. The following little domestic picture shows how conveniently near the thrifty housewife kept her quilt blocks: “A low chair with a seat of twisted osier, on which was tied a loose feather-filled cushion, covered with some gay material. On the back of these chairs hung the bag of knitting, with the little red stocking and shining needles plainly visible, indicating that this was the favourite seat of the industrious mother of the family; or a basket of patchwork held its place upon a low stool (bankje) beside the chair, also to be snatched up at odd intervals (ledige tyd).”
One reliable source of information of the comforts and luxuries that contributed to pleasant dwelling in old New York is found in old inventories of household effects. Occasionally complete lists are found that throw much light on the furnishings of early days. Such an inventory of the household belongings of Captain John Kidd, before he went to sea and turned pirate, mentions over sixty different kinds of house furnishings, from a skillet to a dozen chairs embellished with Turkish embroidery. Among the articles with which John Kidd and his wife Sarah began housekeeping in New York in 1692, as recorded in this inventory, were four bedsteads, with three suits of hangings, curtains, and valances to go with them. Feather beds, feather pillows, linen sheets, tablecloths, and napkins, ten blankets, and three quilts. How much of this store of household linens was part of his wife’s wedding dower is not stated.
The early settlers in Virginia and the Carolinas were mostly English of the better class, who had been landed proprietors with considerable retinues of servants. As soon as these original colonists secured a firm foothold, large estates were developed on which the manners and customs of old England were followed as closely as possible. Each plantation became a self-supporting community, since nearly all the actual necessities were produced or manufactured thereon. The loom worked ceaselessly, turning the wool, cotton, and flax into household commodities, and even the shoes for both slave and master were made from home-tanned leather. For their luxuries, the ships that carried tobacco and rice to the English markets returned laden with books, wines, laces, silverware, and beautiful house furnishings of every description.
In the colonial plantation days of household industry quilts, both patchwork and plain, were made in considerable numbers. Quilts were then in such general use as to be considered too commonplace to be described or even mentioned. Consequently, we are forced to depend for evidence of their existence in those days on bills of sale and inventories of auctions. These records, however, constitute an authority which cannot be questioned.
In 1774 Belvoir, the home of the Fairfax family, one of the largest and most imposing of houses of Virginia, was sold and its contents were put up at auction. A partial list of articles bought at this sale by George Washington, then Colonel Washington, and here given, will show the luxury to which the Southern planter was accustomed: “A mahogany shaving desk, settee bed and furnishings, four mahogany chairs, oval glass with gilt frame, mahogany sideboard, twelve chairs, and three window curtains from dining-room. Several pairs of andirons, tongs, shovels, toasting forks, pickle pots, wine glasses, pewter plates, many blankets, pillows, bolsters, and nineteen coverlids .”
It was customary in the good old days after a dinner or ball for the guests, who necessarily came from long distances, to stay all night, and many bedrooms, frequently from ten to twenty-five, besides those needed for the family, were provided in the big houses. All were beautifully furnished with imported, massive, carved furniture from France and England. In one year, 1768, in Charlestown, South Carolina, occurred twelve weddings among the wealthy residents of that city, and all the furniture for these rich couples came from England. The twelve massive beds with canopies supported by heavily carved posts, decorated with rice stalks and full heads of grain, were so high that steps were needed in order to climb into them. Elaborate and expensive curtains and spreads were furnished to correspond. In one early inventory of an extensively furnished house there are mentioned “four feather beds, bolsters, two stools, looking-glass tipt with silver, two Turkey carpets, one yellow mohair bed counterpane, and two green silk quilts .” From this it is evident that the quilt had already found its place, and no doubt in great numbers, on account of the many beds to furnish in the spacious house of the rich planters.
Shortly after the Revolution came the great migration from Virginia over the ridges of the Blue and the Appalachian chains into what was then the wilderness of Tennessee and Kentucky. The descendants of these hardy pioneers who first forced their way westward still live among the Kentucky and Virginia hills under the conditions which prevailed a hundred years ago. In this heavily timbered rough country they manage to eke out a precarious existence by cultivating small hillside patches of cotton, corn, and a few vegetables. Immured in the seclusion of the mountains they have remained untouched by the world’s progress during the past century. Year after year they are satisfied to live this secluded existence, and but rarely make an acquaintance with a stranger. Educational advantages, except of the most elementary sort, are almost unknown, and the majority of these mountaineers neither read nor write. As a result of this condition of isolated and primitive living, existing in the mountains of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Carolinas, the household crafts that flourished in this country before the advent of machinery are still carried on exactly as in the old days.
The simple needs of the family are almost entirely supplied by the women of the household. They spin, weave, and make the few plain garments which they and their families wear. Day after day, year in and year out, these isolated women must fill in the hours with little tasks connected with home life. As in many other instances where women are dependent upon their own resources for amusement, they have recourse to their needles. Consequently, it is in the making of quilts, coverlets, and allied forms of needlework that these mountain women spend their hours of recreation.
The quilts, both pieced and patched, that are made in mountaineers’ cabins have a great variety of designs. Many designs have been used again and again by each succeeding generation of quilters without any variation whatever, and have well-known names. There are also designs that have been originated by a proficient quilt maker, who has made use of some common flower as the basis for her conventional design. It has not been a great many years since the materials used in making the mountain quilts were dyed as well as woven in the home. The dyes were homemade from common roots and shrubs gathered from nearby woods and meadows. Blue was obtained from wild indigo; brown from walnut hulls; black from the bark of scrub-oak; and yellow from laurel leaves. However, the materials which must be purchased for a quilt are so meagre, and the colours called “oil boiled”—now used to dye calico—are so fast, that the mountain women seldom dye their own fabrics any more. They bring in a few chickens or eggs to the nearest village, and in exchange obtain a few yards of precious coloured calico for their quilts.
Miss Bessie Daingerfield, a Kentuckian, who is in close touch with these mountaineers, tells us what a void the quilt fills in the lives of the lonely women of the hills: “While contemporary women out in the world are waging feminist war, those in the mountains of the long Appalachian chain still sit at their quilting frames and create beauty and work wonders with patient needles. There is much beautiful and skilful handiwork hidden away in these hills. The old women still weave coverlets, towels, and table linen from wool from their own sheep and from flax grown in their own gardens. The girls adorn their cotton gowns with ‘compass work,’ exact, exquisite. In some places the men and boys, girls and women, make baskets of hickory reeds and willows to delight the heart of the collector. But from the cradle to the grave, the women make quilts. The tiny girl shows you with pride the completed four patch or nine patch, square piled on square, which ‘mammy aims to set up for her ag’inst spring.’ The mother tells you half jesting, half in earnest, ‘the young un will have several ag’inst she has a home of her own.’ No bride of the old country has more pride in her dower chest than the mountain bride in her pile of quilts. The old woman will show you a stack of quilts from floor to ceiling of her cabin. One dear old soul told me she had eighty-four, all different, and ‘ever’ stitch, piecin’, settin’ up, quiltin’, my own work and ne’er another finger tetched hit.’”
Patchwork was an important factor in making plain the knotty problems of existence, as Eliza Calvert Hall clearly shows when she makes “Aunt Jane of Kentucky” say: “How much piecin’ a quilt is like livin’ a life! Many a time I’ve set and listened to Parson Page preachin’ about predestination and free will, and I’ve said to myself, ‘If I could jest git up in the pulpit with one of my quilts I could make it a heap plainer to folks than parson’s makin’ it with his big words.’ You see, you start out with jest so much caliker; you don’t go to the store and pick it out and buy it, but the neighbours will give you a piece here and a piece there, and you’ll have a piece left over every time you cut a dress, and you take jest what happens to come. And that’s like predestination. But when it comes to the cuttin’ out, why, you’re free to choose your own pattern. You can give the same kind o’ pieces to two persons, and one’ll make a ‘nine patch’ and one’ll make a ‘wild-goose chase,’ and there’ll be two quilts made out of the same kind of pieces, and jest as different as they can be. And that is jest the way with livin’. The Lord sends us the pieces, but we can cut them out and put ’em together pretty much to suit ourselves, and there’s a heap more in the cuttin’ out and the sewin’ than there is in the caliker.”
In the great Central West, from Ohio to the Mississippi, the early settlers passed through the same cycle of development as did their ancestors in the beginnings of the original colonies along the seaboard. The same dangers and privations were faced, and the women, as well as the men, quickly adapted themselves to the hardships of life in a new country. Shortly after the War of 1812, which secured to the United States a clear title to this vast region, the great migration into the Ohio Valley began. Some families came by way of the Great Lakes, some by wagon over the Pennsylvania ridges, and still others by horseback over the mountains from Virginia. One and all of these pioneer families brought with them their most cherished household possessions. It is hardly necessary to say that every family had one or more quilts among its household goods. Many cases are on record of rare old mahogany bureaus and bedsteads transported hundreds of miles over trails through the wilderness on pack horses. Upon arrival at the site chosen for the future home, the real work of house building and furnishing began.
“Only he who knows what it means to hew a home out of the forest; of what is involved in the task of replacing mighty trees with corn; only he who has watched the log house rising in the clearing, and has witnessed the devotedness that gathers around the old log schoolhouse and the pathos of a grave in the wilderness, can understand how sobriety, decency, age, devoutness, beauty, and power belong to the story of those who began the mighty task of changing the wild west into the heart of a teeming continent.” Thus Jenkin Lloyd Jones, in his address on “The Father of Lincoln,” gives a graphic picture of the labours and trials confronting those who made the first settlements in what are now the flourishing states of Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, and Michigan.
As in the colonies of New England, so here, the comforts of the family depended upon the thrift, energy, and thoughtfulness of the women. Practically every article of clothing worn by the entire family, as well as all household supplies, were the work of their busy hands. All day in the frontier cabin could be heard the hum of the spinning wheel, the clack of the loom, or the click of knitting needles. In many localities the added work of teaching the children fell to the mothers, and the home lessons given around the fireplace, heaped with glowing logs, were the only ones possible for many boys and girls. It is of particular interest to note how often learning and housekeeping went hand in hand in the first homes of this new country. The few lines following are extracts from the diary of a busy Indiana housewife of the period preceding the Mexican War, and show how fully occupied was the time of the pioneer woman:
“November 10th. To-day was cider-making day, and all were up at sunrise.”
“December 1st. We killed a beef to-day, the neighbours helping.”
“December 4th. I was much engaged in trying out my tallow. To-day I dipped candles and finished the ‘Vicar of Wakefield.’”
“December 8th. To-day I commenced to read the ‘Life of Washington,’ and I borrowed a singing book. Have been trying to make a bonnet. The cotton we raised served a very good purpose for candle-wicking when spun.”
In the Middle West, without friendly coöperation, the lot of the pioneer would have been much more difficult than it was. Julia Henderson Levering tells of the prevalence of this kindly custom in her interesting “Historic Indiana”: “The social pleasures of the earliest days were largely connected with the helpful neighbourhood assistance in the homely, necessary tasks of the frontier. If a new cabin was to be built, the neighbours assembled for the house raising, for the logs were too heavy to be handled alone. When a clearing was made, the log rolling followed. All men for miles around came to help, and the women to help cook and serve the bountiful meals. Then there were corn huskings, wool shearings, apple parings, sugar boilings, and quilting bees.”
About 1820 a new channel of commerce was opened to the inhabitants of the Ohio Valley, in the advantages of which every household shared. This was the establishing of steamboat and flatboat communication with New Orleans. From out of the Wabash River alone over a thousand flatboats, laden with agricultural products, passed into the Ohio during the annual spring rise on their way to the seaport by the Gulf of Mexico. On their return voyage these boats were laden with sacks of coffee, quaint Chinese boxes of tea, china and silk from France, and mahogany and silver from England. In this manner the finest fabrics, which were hitherto obtainable only in those cities that possessed sea communication, were available in every river hamlet. Many of the fine old quilts now being brought to light in the Central West were wrought of foreign cloth which has made this long journey in some farmer’s scow.
In England during the middle of the past century, the Victorian period was known chiefly for its hideous array of cardboard mottoes done in brilliant wools, crochet tidies, and wax flowers. It is particularly fortunate that at this time the women of the United States were too fully occupied with their own household arts and industries to take up with the ideas of their English sisters. By far the best needlework of this period were the beautiful quilts and bedspreads, exquisite in colour and design, which were the product of American women. The finest quilts were wrought along designs largely original with the quilters themselves, who plied their needles in solitary farmhouses and out-of-the-way hamlets to which the influence of English idea in needlework could not penetrate. In no locality in our country can so many rare and beautiful quilts be found as in the Middle West. Many of the best were made during those early days of struggle for mere existence, when they served the busy housewife as the one precious outlet for her artistic aspirations.
The type of quilt that may be called distinctively American was substantial in character; the material that entered into its construction was serviceable, of a good quality of cotton cloth, or handwoven linen, and the careful work put into it was intended to stand the test of time. The coloured materials combined with the white were also enduring, the colours being as nearly permanent as it was possible to procure. Some cottons were dyed by the quilt makers themselves, if desirable fast shades could not be readily procured otherwise. The fundamental idea was to make a quilt that would withstand the greatest possible amount of wear. Some of the artistic possibilities in both colour and design were often subordinated to the desire to make quilts as nearly imperishable as possible. The painstaking needlework required to produce a quilt deserved the best of material for its foundation. Silks, satins, velvets, and fine linen and cotton fabrics of delicate shades were not favoured as quilt material by the old-time needleworkers, who wrought for service first and beauty afterward.
A most beautiful example of the American quilt at its best is found in the “Indiana Wreath.” Its pleasing design, harmonious colours, and exquisite workmanship reveal to us the quilter’s art in its greatest perfection. This quilt was made by Miss E. J. Hart, a most versatile and skilful needlewoman, in 1858, as shown by the small precise figures below the large wreath. The design is exceedingly well balanced in that the entire quilt surface is uniformly covered and no one feature is emphasized to the detriment of any other. The design element of the wreath is a compact group of flowers, fruit, and leaves, which is repeated ten times in making the complete circle. The vase filled with drooping sprays, flowers, and conventionalized buds forms an ideal centre for this wreath. Curving vines intermingled with flowers make a desirable and graceful border. This quilt is a little more than two and a half yards square, and the central wreath fills a space equal to the width of a double bed, for which it was evidently intended.
Miss Hart displayed unusual ability in choosing and combining the limited materials at the disposal of the quilt maker in a newly settled region. The foundation is fine white muslin; the coloured material is calico, in the serviceable quality manufactured at that time, and of shades considered absolutely fast, then known as “oil boiled.” Only four colours are used in the design: green, red, yellow, and pink, the latter having a small allover printed design in a darker shade.
Miss Hart planned her quilting quite carefully. In the large blank spaces in the corners are placed special, original designs that have some features of the much-used “feather” pattern. Aside from these triangular corner designs all the quilting is in small diamonds, which form a very pleasing background for the effective coloured designs. The maker’s name and the date are closely quilted in white in plain bold-faced type just below the wreath. In the centre of the wreath, in neat script in black thread, is quilted the name “Indiana Wreath,” and all the stitchery of top and quilting is the very perfection of quilt making.
The beautiful white quilts that are treasured as relics of past industry by their fortunate owners deserve special mention. They are rare because nowadays no one will expend the large amount of time necessary to complete one. The foundation of such a quilt is fine white muslin, or fine homespun and woven linen, with a very thin interlining. The beauty of the quilt depends upon the design drawn for the quilting and the fine stitches with which the quilting is done. There is usually a special design planned for these white quilts which includes a large central panel or pattern, with smaller designs for the corners embodying some of the ideas of the central panel. Around these decorative sections the background is so closely quilted as to resemble a woven fabric. This smooth, even background throws the principal designs into low relief. After the entire quilt is quilted and removed from the frames, the main design is frequently further accentuated by having all the most prominent features, such as the leaves and petals of flowers, stuffed. To accomplish this tiny holes are made on the wrong side of each section of the design and cotton is pushed in with a large needle until the section is stuffed full and tight. This tedious process is followed until every leaf and petal stands out in bold relief.
The fashion which has prevailed for many years of dressing beds all in white has no doubt caused the destruction of many beautiful quilts. The white quilts that have been preserved are now considered too valuable to be subjected to hard wear. The most exquisite ones were made in the last of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries.
It was the rage for white bed coverings that shortened the lives of many old pieced and patched quilts of good colouring. The “Country Contributor” tells of her experiences in dressing up the white beds:
“I remember with regret the quilts I wore out, using them white side up in lieu of white Marseilles spreads. The latter we were far too poor to own; the ‘tufted’ ones had worn out; and I loathed the cheap ‘honeycombed’ cotton things we were forced to use unless we were going to be frankly ‘poor’ and cover our beds with plain patchwork, made up hurriedly and quilted in simple ‘fans’ in plebeian squares, as poor folk who haven’t time for elegant stitches did theirs. So I used the old quilts, making their fine stitches in intricate patterns serve for the design in a ‘white spread,’ turning the white muslin lining up. A beautiful white spread it made, too, I realize now, more fully than I did then, though I now would know much better than to turn the wonderful appliqué stars and flowers and wheels from view. Strange, is it not, that we relinquish so much of life’s best joy and pleasure before we know what actually is good?” This fashion prevails to-day, in some instances insisted upon for sanitary reasons, but it has lost to us many of the finest examples of quilting that existed because where there were no coloured patterns to relieve the white expanse, the quilting had to be perfect. If you have a white quilt treasure it, for competent quilters are no longer numerous and few there are who can reproduce it.