The Save All Quilt

Mary Louisa Snoddy Black (1860-1927), a quiltmaker from South Carolina, was the family quilt collector. The daughter of a successful farmer, she was well-known in the region of Spartanburg for her volunteer efforts and dedication to her community’s health and well-being. During her lifetime, she made several quilts and was able to collect other quilts made by members of her family.

During the 1880s, before she married, Mary Louisa Snoddy stitched a scrap quilt. She referred to this finished quilt as The Save All Quilt. This quilt, measuring 95″ x 85″, was constructed of cotton scraps and leftover pieces of fabrics, including fabric from two of her Mother’s dresses for the borders.

When Mary Black determined that the 16 family quilts she had acquired were needing to be passed on to other family members, she had the insight to record bits of history with those heirlooms. She directed her daughter, Mary Kate Black, to document each quilt and so her daughter attached handwritten labels onto each of the quilts.

The Save All Quilt label reads:

Made by Mary Louisa Snoddy. Called ‘The Save All’, for no waste in material. The two borders were of her dresses Mother had but tore up to make quilt.

The story of Mary Black’s family quilts is found in a quilt history book by Laurel Horton entitled, Mary Black’s Family Quilts: Memory and Meaning in Everyday Life. This book is published by University of South Carolina Press.

Tumbled Masses Of Bits

On the subject of color in patchwork, Lucy Boston wrote:

It is a fallacy that in patchwork any colour goes. The pleasure of the work comes from using one’s own choice of colour for each two little pieces one sews together, as a painter would. A desperate search through tumbled masses of bits for the right tone is often necessary, and one can only use what one has.

Lucy Boston, quilter, gardener, and children’s author, lived at The Manor At Hemingford Grey until her death in 1990. At the age of 98, she left behind a legacy, now preserved, at the 900-year old Manor in Huntingdonshire.

Patchwork of the Crosses, one of the exquisite quilts made by Lucy Boston, was created in the style of traditional English hand-piecing with paper templates. The patchwork in this quilt uses a long hexagon, a square, and a triangle.

Searching through her “tumbled masses of bits” was undoubtedly a pleasure that Lucy Boston realized.

Quilt-Piecing

A quiltmaker’s ability to transform fabric scraps into patterned beauty has spanned centuries. A patchwork quilt, born of necessity, provides the quiltmaker with a means to practice frugality while also enjoying the art and craft of home decoration.

Quiltmaking continues now, perhaps with more interest than America has ever known. Through women’s diaries left behind and our old history books, we learn quiltmakers of long ago had a special connection with fabrics. Are we surprised?

Alice Morse Earle (1851-1911), the first American historian to chronicle everyday life in the Colonial era, wrote:

The feminine love of color, the longing for decoration, as well as pride in skill of needle-craft, found riotous expansion in quilt-piecing. A thrifty economy, too, a desire to use up all the fragments and bits of stuffs which were necessarily cut out in the shaping, chiefly of women’s and children’s garments, helped to make the patchwork a satisfaction. The amount of labor, of careful fitting, neat piecing, and elaborate quilting, the thousands of stitches that went into one of these patchwork quilts, are to-day almost painful to regard. 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 the cottons and linens of which the patchwork was made. They were none of the slimsy, composition-filled, aniline-dyed calicoes of to-day. A piece of “chaney,” “patch,” or “copper-plate” a hundred years old will be as fresh to-day as when woven. Real India chintzes and palampours are found in these quilts, beautiful and artistic stuffs, and the firm, unyielding, high-priced, “real” French calicoes.

A sense of the idealization of quilt-piecing is given also by the quaint descriptive names applied to the various patterns. Of those the “Rising-sun,” “Log Cabin,” and “Job’s Trouble” are perhaps the most familiar. “Job’s Trouble” was simply honeycomb or hexagonal blocks. “To set a Job’s Trouble,” was to cut out an exact hexagon for a pattern (preferably from tin, otherwise from firm cardboard); to cut out from this many hexagons in stiff brown paper or letter paper. These were covered with the bits of calico with the edges turned under; the sides were sewed carefully together over and over, till a firm expanse permitted the removal of the papers.

Quoted from:
Alice Morse Earle, Home Life In Colonial Days. (New York: Macmillan Co., 1898), pp. 271-272.

More Quilts Of Red & Green

More red and green quilts from IQSC!

The Laurel Wreath, appliqued in red and green, makes such a beautiful quilt. This one, made between 1840 and 1860, measures 106″ x 105″!

The North Carolina Lily, made in red and green between 1840 and 1860, measures 98″ x 90″.

The Pineapple applique quilt was made between 1860 and 1880.

This red and green Peony Variation applique quilt is stunning. Forty clusters of red berries in the border!

The Pots Of Flowers, a four block applique, c. 1850, measures 77″ x 78″.

Another Pots Of Flowers, this four block applique showcases coxcombs and tulips. The quilt was made in 1904 and measures 81″ x 83″.

This four block Pots Of Flowers of coxcombs was made between 1860-1880. It measures 83″ x 79″.

The Princess Feather quilt made between 1860 -1880 measures 94″ x 92″. Note the red and green eagles in the corners.

This red and green appliqued Princess Feather quilt, dating from 1860-1880, has urns in the border.

The Tree of Life quilt, by Polly Ann Squires Nesbitt, was dated 1850. The quilt measures 90″ x 79″.

Enjoy the holidays!

Merry Christmas!

Quilts of Red & Green

The Christmas holiday season is marked with shades of red and green everywhere. Looking at antique quilts, we can appreciate how past quiltmakers enjoyed these colors as they plied their needles making exquisite red and green quilts.

This red and green floral quilt, made between 1860-1880, measures 75″ x 76″.

This red and green Album-style Princess Feather, is somewhat whimsical and definately unique. The quilt, c.1860-1880, measures almost square, at 80″ x 78″.

Jesters Plume, made between 1850-1870, is magnificent and beautifully detailed. (Don’t miss the birds in the center of this quilt!) This applique quilt measures 93″ x 91″.

These baskets could be Christmas Baskets! This quilt measures 89″ x 85″, circa 1880.

The Coxcomb applique quilt (below) is dated 1858 and measures 97″ x 101″.

The Fleur de Lis applique quilt, c.1860-1880, was corded and stuffed. This quilt measures 86″ x 83″.

The Cactus Rose applique quilt, made between 1860 and 1880, measures square at 85″.

The Christmas Cactus has been used as an applique motif with quilters. This Christmas Cactus, is a red and green applique quilt, dated 1861.

This Christmas Cactus quilt, a 4 square applique quilt, was made between 1880-1900.

Note: These quilts are part of the collection at IQSC.