A few days ago a friend passed on to me a quilt top she had purchased many years ago in England. It is made of silks and still has much of the paper used to piece it (say that three times fast) basted on the back.
The silks are tougher for me to date than cottons but the writing and the advertisement pieces provide clues. I'm thinking circa 1900...what do you think?
As much as I love the papers on the back they may have contributed to some of the deterioration of the silk. There is acid in the paper and that isn't good for the fabrics.
Years ago I found a cotton EPP with the paper. I carefully removed the papers and put them in an acid free envelope for safekeeping. Like this quilt, there was a lot of writing on the papers and I hoped to gain some insight into who and where the quilt-top was made by looking through them.
I'm going to keep the piece as it is and use it as a study piece. I will wrap it in acid free paper and keep it in an acid free box with some other blocks from the same time period.
6 comments:
I am fascinated by this. It would be so interesting to study those papers. I hope you will share what you learn!
I've never seen this quilt done in silks. I wouldn't begin to know how to date those.
What a fabulous piece to have given to you!!! I'm intrigued by all the papers too, especially as some of them look like a letter!! A great jig-saw puzzle!!!
Just looking at it I'm wondering where the lady who made it was going with this piece?.......
Glad to know it is now going to be given special care!!!!
That sure would be pretty if finished. I'd be afraid to use it. Hugs
Just stunning. Thanks for showing it!
John Heywood's copy-books were from Manchester Publishing in England from around the 1870s and probably later. John Heywood was a proponent of free libraries in Manchester. It would be but that would mean either photographing and scanning to see if the name or location can be found and will be quite a project.
Sorry about the typo up there – it would be great to see what the letters that were used contained. If they had names or locations, that could possibly help identify a maker or a region. It’s clearly made by somebody from England or in England and probably no later than the 1880s or 1890s.
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