Dating quilts

Dating Quilts: From 1600 to the Present

Last week I mentioned I was going to a workshop on dating antique quilts. We were a small group and each of us had brought two to three quilts that we got to examine. It was a very pleasant way to spend a morning. I own two antique quilts of unknown provenance. While the presenter, Dale Drake, was unable to determine the age of one of them, she said the date on the other is probably - due to the green fabric. Can you see how the green has discolored the muslin around it? Here are some of the things we talked about.

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Although few collectors can claim such expertise, most do enjoy knowing from whence their quilts came. According to Country Home magazine, even the novice collector will be able to place a wide number of quilts in their proper historical perspective by learning to recognize the most typical quilting styles of certain major epochs. During the years between the American Revolution and the beginning of the westward migration, bedcovers blossomed with cotton cutouts salvaged from leftover bits of expensive European chintz. Using a method called broderie perse Persian embroidery , women carefully snipped around the bird-and-flower motifs of the imported chintzes and appliqued them on fields of plain domestic cloth to make the most of the patterned fabric available to them. Patchwork precursors of the pioneer quilts also were common, and many combined the patchwork and the broderie perse techniques. Early quilts usually were constructed by adding border strips to a large, central fabric panel, giving the bedcover a framed effect. Two other early quilt types are linsey-woolsey and white work.

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This book is a must for quilt collectors, quilt lovers, museum goers, and antique buffs. Helen's handy little book will help you date quilts in minutes and increase your kowledge of antique quilts.

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Quilts 101: Identifying Vintage and Antique Quilts

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