Textiles and the Triplett Sisters

Recently an eagle captured a squirrel off the roof of my house and flew into a neighbor’s tree to eat his breakfast. (You never know where the inspiration for a blog article will appear, especially when concurrently a discussion about eagle fabric on a Facebook page took place…the blog theme was set.) I love eagles and even considered painting one for a quilt after Kay purchased a framed eagle textile for the Poos Collection. Instead, I began tracking eagle fabric in quilts. (Not applique or painted eagles in quilts which seems too numerous to track.) So far, I’ve been tracking four types of 19th century eagle fabric nicknamed: Wreath, floral spray aka festoon, seal, and centennial. Eagle on a floral spray (festoon) with a maroon background started this journey, with the production of the fabric starting...

One of the joys in quilting are the many techniques and choices to make. You can take a taste of all or focus on a few; it is whatever makes your heart sing as you create your art. I love what is commonly known as English Paper Piecing. (I’m still advocating for the name “Italian Paper Piecing” since the oldest known example of paper piecing is the Imprunetta cushion from the 15th century. If you’d like to see the pillow, here is a link to the blog about it.) So far, the Triplett Sisters have done 3 Block of the Months: 1856 Huguenot Friendship Quilt, The Wedding Quilt, and Bird in a Lace Cage. (We called them Block of the Month’s because we focus on a block every month, but everyone is encouraged to work at...

Somerset is a county in the South West of England by Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Dorset and Devon. . Parts of the area were settled very early, with bones dating to 12,000 BCE. It comes from an Old English name “Sumorsaete meaning the people living dependent on Somerton.” The first known use of the name is in the law code of King Ine, a Saxon King from 688 to 726, which makes Somerset one of the oldest existing units of local government. The Quakers established a “Meeting” in Somerset in 1656, eventually establishing a meeting house and during the 1700s the town became predominantly Quaker. In 2015 a suitcase was discovered in the attic of this Quaker town, which had more than 70 fabrics from the mid-1800s. According to Anne Varley, the owner of the antique fabric stash...

It seems like many textile people have a strong feeling about printed patchwork, they either love it and collect it or they hate it and consider it a cheat way to make a quilt. Hence the nickname of cheater cloth which according to Barbara Brackman was used for the first time in print in 1910 by “America’s Textile Reporter.” In 1929 Ruth Finley’s “Old Patchwork Quilts” book refers to this style of fabric as Faux Patchwork and Geometrical Chintz, a term still in use at the Winterthur Museum. Surprisingly “patchwork prints” the phrase used in the 19th century ads has been around since the mid-18th century, according to Deborah E. Kraak’s paper in Uncoverings.While the “pretend patchwork” seems to have been popular in the 1830s-1840s, the Centennial Exposition of 1876 caused an explosion in the printed...

The large central star pattern in a quilt is usually associated with American patchwork, according to the V & A. Although the pattern has been found in other countries, so it isn’t exclusive to America. This pattern is considered one of the older quilt patterns. At this time, no date inscribed quilt using the large central star has been found in the early 19th century. However, dating quilts using the fabric provides many examples after 1820. During the early period of the star pattern, the most frequent name used was Star of Bethlehem which was used throughout the United States. This name of course relates to the large star guiding the wise men to the town of Bethlehem to see baby Jesus. Mathematical Star was the early name used in England and the eastern coast of...