THE DEEP SOUTH QUILT STUDY GROUP
February, 2004, Meeting
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In Clues in the Calico Barbara Brackman notes that food and the
laughter of friends were important elements of the earliest recorded
quilt gatherings. "Fine eating and merry quilting," is the way
Frances Baylor Hill characterized one gathering at her home in July,
1797. The next day she observed, "Mrs. Garlick and Sally came.
Spent the day agreeable eating drinking and quilting." (p.17)
In their first meeting, members of The Deep South Quilt Study Group
carried on the tradition of conviviality so early associated with
quiltmaking. Thirty-five to forty quilt lovers from Alabama, Arkansas,
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas gathered in Ruston, LA, February 6-7,
2004, for a weekend of quilt study, "agreeable eating" and
general delight. Some of our friends from QHL had looked at our agenda
and asked whether, between meals, we would have time to look at any
quilts. We are happy to report that we did, in fact, see wonderful
quilts and that we did not get food on any of them.
Members included quilt appraisers, folklorists, dealers, collectors,
and quilters. While many attending had begun quilting during the revival
of the 1970's or later, at least as many came from unbroken lines of
family quiltmakers dating to the early 19th century.
Heartening too was the presence of Marla Ivy, from Austin.
Twenty-something, Marla was beyond question the youngest person present.
Her passion for historic quilts and her skill in rescuing them prove the
interest which brought our group together extends into a rising
generation.
FRIDAY EVENING. The group gathered in the Community Room of Community
Trust Bank for an informal supper of Mississippi catfish, Louisiana
gumbo, and jambalaya. Approaching the meeting room, the Texans had been
dismayed to see a red and green Union Square quilt prominently
displayed. When its owner, Gaye Ingram, pleaded simple ignorance and
assured them they were, in fact, at the DEEP SOUTH Quilt Study Group
meeting, they recovered themselves sufficiently to consume a commendable
quantity of Louisiana vittles and to contribute far more than their
share to the conviviality and knowledge base of the group.
After dinner, each person shared the first quilt she or he (we had
several friends and husbands present) had purchased, inherited, made, or
"rescued." Two quilts turned up from families who had lived
scarcely a block from the meeting place. One, a late19th-century
red-green-and-yellow print, had been "rescued" from a family
home in South Carolina by its previous owner, who then passed it on to one
of her former students who appreciated quilts. The other had been made
next door by the mother of Myra Turnage, El Dorado, AR.
Several participants brought their baby quilts. Ladye Harveston of
Jonesboro, LA, displayed a well-worn quilt under which she and her
sister had slept. She also showed the very large safety pin their mother
had used to pin the quilt to the mattress, thus assuring her daughters
remained covered throughout the night. Martha Gilbert, Jonesboro, showed
a baby quilt in which the brown wool batting formed little
"wads" because of repeating washings.
In keeping with the red-and-green theme, a member of the Louisiana
Tech Art Department, Peter Jones, showed a red-and-green pieced and
appliquéd quilt (circa 1840) belonging to his family in New York. It
had been made in Carlisle, PA, his family's home. Mary Lou Jones,
McKinney, TX showed a late 19th-century floral applique, and Stephanie
Hanson, McKinney, TX showed an amusing three-dimensional rose block she
had made.
Carolyn Miller, Fairview, TX showed the quilt that had made her a
collector and quilter, a dramatic19th-century log cabin purchased when,
miffed that she had to drive home alone from Colorado, Carolyn had more
or less innocently stopped at an Oklahoma antique shop. There, among a
group of seven quilts, she discovered one that called to her. So
efficacious in reducing her level of ire did it prove that when she got
home, she called the shop and bought the other six. A case of one thing
leading to another and another.
Friday night participants saw a particularly stunning
mid-19th-century appliquéd floral design in disproportionately tiny
baskets. It had made its way in the form of blocks and border pieces
from Toledo, Iowa(1912), to Minnesota, thence to Arkansas (1940). Linda
Clark, Louann, AR, had received the pieces from her mother-in-law, who
had preserved them in a pillow case for over 50 years and in closing
down her house, had considered giving them to Goodwill Industries. The
blocks and appliquéd border appear to have been made circa 1850. Though
a stylized pattern, the design is lively and, executed in colorful
calicos, indigos, and bright solids. In several blocks the appliqués
had extended over the background piece. In order to preserve the
character of the originals, Linda had removed the stitching where pieces
overflowed their boundaries, hand-sewed the blocks to sashing, and then
carefully reapplied the loose parts of the flower edges. She had worked
out problems with the borders, then quilted the piece in fine
handquilting stitches. The result is an extraordinary multi-generational
quilt that preserves the energetic spirit of the inherited blocks and
their maker.
Another family quilt that migrated south from the Midwest was the
oldest piece shown, a blue and white central medallion quilt thought to
have originated near Philadelphia. It is signed "Ann Moffet"
and dated "1801" in small, fine, schoolgirl cross-stitch. A
male relative took the quilt west to Atchison, Kansas. It now is in the
hands of a descendent, Cindy Pannier, of Brandon, MS. The medium blue
fabric has a small, widely spaced white flower print, probably a sweet
pea, which appears to have been inked or dyed pink on the central
medallion and left untinted elsewhere. Forming a loose inner border
design are circles of the blue fabric centered with appliquéd chintz
roses. Cindy says an appraiser identified the fabric as indigo which had
been bleached and overdyed. She noted the appraiser was working hastily
and in poor lighting. The group is interested in learning more about the
dye process that produced this fabric and in discovering its ultimate
origin. One member theorizes it originated in England.
Watching quilters making notes and sketches of Linda's quilt reminded
us that these two quilts represent a newer migration pattern into the
Deep South and the effects of a more mobile population. Most
19th-century quilts in the region arrived with their from the Carolinas
and Tennessee. Although World War II brought many new people to military
bases across the Deep South, the area remained a largely stable
population until the 1960's, when dramatic migration into sunbelt cities
occurred. The effects this new migration on specific aspects of regional
quiltmaking deserve exploration, even in a communication-saturated era
like the 20th century.
SATURDAY MORNING, Carolyn Miller presented a remarkable program on
Red and Green Quilts, showing over 25 pieces from her personal
collection. The room glittered with the exceptional range of glorious
reds and greens in quilts dating from 1840 to 1940. Just having the
opportunity to see these quilts was a treat, but Carolyn researches
every quilt in her collection, and her presentation included not merely
discussions of the aesthetics of each one and its relationship to the
genre, but also information on its individual history. An inveterate
student of quiltmaking and quilt history, Carolyn brings exceptional
depth to the new group. She concluded her presentation by showing a
finely wrought Delectable Mountains she had pieced and machine quilted.
Aside from the beauty of the collection and all that it taught about
dyes, textiles, and pattern evolution, this presentation vividly
demonstrated how much variety can be achieved within a single category
of quiltmaking.
Saturday afternoon, the group got down to the business of looking at
SOUTHERN QUILTS. We saw a large number of quilts made in the 1920's and
1930's which had descended through the current owners' families and had
intact histories. Among these was a Goblet pattern, made by the Nona
Sale's' mother in Webster Parish, LA. It is quilted in the fan quilting
design and backed with a dark woven check backing that appeared
repeatedly during the weekend. The same characteristics are seen in her
quilt Birds in the Air. Myrtis Orr of Lincoln Parish, LA, showed quilts
made in the parish by her relatives, including an Ocean Waves quilt made
by her great-grandmother, Amanda Chandler and a Japanese Fan and a quilt
known in the family as 54-40 OR Fight, made by her mother, Mary
Chandler. From her husband's Central Louisiana (Rapides Parish)
ancestors, she showed a star quilt made before 1920 by Seany Melder as a
wedding gift for Orr's mother-and father-in-law.
Myra Turnage showed carefully pieced and quilted red-and-green
Poinsettia. Rising Sun, and Japanese Fan quilts made by her mother
during the Depression era. All had similar and interesting border
treatments.
A variety of excellent early 20th-century pastel quilts appeared
during the weekend. Among these was a Lone Star, a Dresden Plate, a
circular Ball pattern, and two quilts with rectangular, embroidered
blocks with state flower motifs. One was colored with crayon; the other
was not. Members are researching the specific origins of these patterns.
Several quilts and quilt tops from the 1940's also were shown,
including a bright Windmill by Euna Clark and a lively scrappy Star
quilt, probably meant for utility purposes, but made with an
idiosyncratic sashing that distinguishes it and lifts it above the
ordinary. It almost surely speaks of its maker's determination to create
beauty even in humble circumstances. Carla Rowley, Huntsville, AL also
showed a scrap Star quilt from this era A quilt top made in Bristol, TN
in early 1940, from a pattern published in the local newspaper, suggests
the irrepressibility of its maker's spirits, if not the precision of her
piecing skills. Its extravagance makes this funky quilt amusing.
A number of quilt tops were shown that had been passed down through
families and quilted by the present generation of quilters.
Seeing the quilts and hearing the personal stories attached to them
affirmed that traditional quiltmaking, in which the art of quiltmaking
is passed down through close social groups, has remained an important
element in Southern culture. The value of quilts in conferring dignity
and unique identity on the maker and in preserving family histories and
traditions was inescapable to anyone at our meeting..
One member showed a family quilt top which she had acquired on eBay.
She had never forgotten a special quilt top made by her great
grandmother, whom she had never known. It had held a special place in
her grandmother's cedar chest, taken out only for admiration and as aid
in telling stories about its maker and her experiences during the Civil
War. Ultimately the quilt fell into the hands of a childless cousin who
had few contacts with the rest of her family but who was not inclined to
share her curiously gotten gains. Two years ago, a relative notified the
DSQSG member the quilt was coming up for auction on eBay. When it
appeared, it matched the childhood colored drawing in the member's
childhood autograph book exactly. She bought it, and now it is back in
the family with its identity and meaning saved for rising generations.
As members began to show quilts from the South, we immediately noted
the large proportion of fan quilting found in pieces from the 1850's
through the 1940's and across a wide range of quilt top designs. The
fans were finely worked, usually in large smooth arcs, though,
surprisingly, one quilt showed delicate, small arcs. In another, two
parallel rows were used to form each unit in the fan or arc, similar to
double-bar straight-row quilting. Observing quilt after quilt that had
the gracefully curving fans, one could scarcely help thinking of Fawn
Valentine's hypothesis about fan quilting as an element in the
Scots-Irish quilting tradition.
The group was also surprised by the large number of dark woven checks
or plaid backings, in blue and especially in brown colors. Research will
be necessary to determine why this backing was so common in our region.
The popularity of the tradition in which a quilt maker executes a top
and has it quilted by another person, often one who specializes in
quilting alone, also became obvious as quilts were shown. In fact, a
number of quilts shown could be traced to the same quilter.
The number of area quilts containing wool batts also surprised some.
One of the these was a Mississippi Seven Sisters quilt belonging to Joan
Alliston, Brandon. Well into the 20th century, the inland South was
populated by self-sufficient farmers who grew sheep both for meat and
wool. Several North LA archival sources report lambskin rugs placed on
cold wood floors and the presence of mutton and lamb in the diet in the
1920's.
We saw two different versions of the dramatic Seven Sisters pattern,
a pattern popular across the South. One had been made the hard way,
joining red and white triangles to a center circle and then piecing the
star unit thus formed to an outer circle. In contrast to those in the
more conventional hexagonal units, the stars in this quilt are thin and
delicately attenuated. A member of the group noted that many associate
this pattern with the circle of six stars which had adorned the original
Confederate flag. The question arises: which came first, the pattern in
the quilt or in the flag?
Two Louisiana examples of the historic Whig's Defeat pattern were
shown. Gaye Ingram traced the history of this pattern to the
presidential election of 1844, when James Knox Polk, a Tennessee
Democrat and friend of Andrew Jackson, shocked the nation by defeating
Henry Clay, a Whig from Kentucky. The Whig Party was popular in the
older, established sections of the country and had as its base an uneasy
union of northern industrial interests and members of the aristocratic
planter class in the South. The Democratic Party favored western
expansion, a policy that made it popular with the small farmers who were
ever moving westward as they wore out old land. It with populism and the
"little man" of the day. Its position regarding territorial
expansion made it popular in the territories, including Texas, which
became a state during Polk's term, and with many in the slaveholding
states. The Whig's Defeat pattern, with its appliquéd
"feathers" reportedly representing the feathers in the
Democratic rooster's tail, is a pattern seen in a number of outstanding
and extant 19th-century Southern quilts. Barbara Brackman lists the
construction date of the oldest example of a quilt in this pattern as
1844. Its structural relationship to Richmond Beauty is obvious.
Gaye showed an example of the pattern from rural Claiborne Parish in
the hills of North Louisiana, dated 1855 (85?) and signed in ink by its
maker, "J. Eppinger," whose initials are also quilted into one
corner. Its central motif is a small single-color red print on a bright
yellow ground. Alternating yellow and (now faded) solid green
"feathers" are pieced. The diamonds surrounding the yellow
centers are pieced in excellent solid red and white fabrics. Teal
oakleaf designs are appliquéd to alternating white blocks. The quilt
has a thick cotton batting, and is backed with a coarse fabric that
appears to be homespun.
Carolyn showed a more sophisticated example of this pattern, made in
orange, yellow, red, and white solids and originating in South
Louisiana, near Bunkie. Its seller reported the quilt came from the
family of Leonidas Polk, a close relative of James K. Polk and an
officer in the Confederate army, Because of Polk's political connections
and military rank, the family plantation buildings were burned and
looted by invading Union armies during the Red River Campaign (1863) of
the Civil War. Assuming the family linens had been destroyed in the
fires, Carolyn had originally dated the quilt as post-Civil War.
However, she has discovered that along with a number of other Louisiana
families, the Polks emigrated to East Texas during the war to avoid
danger. Thus, she is reassessing her estimate. Whatever its date, the
quilt's direct association with the family of the president responsible
for the surprising defeat of the heavily favored Whig Party strongly
suggests this quilt was politically motivated. Adding to the historic
dimensions of the piece is the fact that the planter class in South
Louisiana tended to be strongly Whiggish, and in 1863 several prominent
families in the immediate area from which it came incurred the hostility
of locals by collaborating with invading Union forces.
A quilt that puzzled everyone was a small feathered star in red and
bright teal or turquoise, shown by Euna Clark, Smackover, AR. Family
legend places its construction in the 19th century. Since the fabrics
are solid, they give no definitive clues for dating. Yet, the
teal/turquoise fabric, the style of quilting, and design of the
scalloped border point to the 1920s or 30s. We hope more work will be
done on this quilt's background and welcome information that will help
resolve the questions we have.
Vividly affirming that fine piecing and quilting skills are alive and
well in the South was a Dear Jane Quilt pieced by Beth Scammerhorn,
Ruston, and painstakingly quilted by Nona Sale, Minden, LA. Like so many
others seen, this quilt had a meaningful story. Beth pieced it in the
period following the events of 9/11/2001. She felt a deep sense of
connection with the its prototype's maker, who also worked through
trying times.. Some days, when national events were particularly
daunting, she said she would be grateful to find that the next block in
the progression she had lined out was a simple one. At other times, the
difficulty of a block would test her patience, but draw her attention to
beauty and away from the sadness and fear of the time.
At the end of a full day of examining a wide and interesting variety
of quilts, we discussed a schedule for future meetings. Because of the
distance separating members, twice-yearly meetings seem to present a
good beginning model. And because Ruston is located fairly centrally and
provides inexpensive, easily accessible lodging, it was thought to be a
reasonable place to hold meetings. The suggestion was made that
alternate meetings might be scheduled to visit Southern museum
collections or special exhibits. Members will discuss these
possibilities and arrive at regular meeting dates in the near future.
Those dates will be posted to this site.
Following a brief hiatus in which visitors scoped out all of Ruston
(It doesn't take long; they had time left over), everyone gathered for
supper at a local barbecue restaurant. There, they indulged in "agreable"
eating and laughter. After supper, members retired to the home of Gaye
and Glynn Ingram for dessert and after-dinner talk. Stephanie Hanson
from McKinney, TX, who had won the drawing for the miniature framed
quilt donated by Jonesboro, LA quilter Martha Gilbert, entered the
Ingram house laughing, "Where's dessert? I feel like I'm in a
feeding frenzy."
All of us have happy memories of "fine quilting and merry
eating," and we look forward to being together again. The weekend
gave us all a new community and new friends with whom we share a special
interest. We have defined a number of questions and issues about our
region's quilts that deserve study, and we have begun to identify
certain characteristics that appear to be regional. Discussions have
continued by telephone and email, and we look forward to discussing our
findings in future gatherings.
This first meeting was all we imagined and a little more. Its
importance was recognized by the local newspaper, which printed on the
front page of its Monday edition a color photograph of Carolyn Miller
with her red quilts. Since Carolyn has found interesting the stories of
bizarre criminal acts that appear in the Ruston Daily Leader (Ruston
might be the only place in America to have had a bandit walk into a
bank, pull a gun, and say, "Give me all your quarters!"), the
local members were happy to see her picture in the paper and even more
pleased it was properly captioned. (We didn't tell her that two years
ago a police officer also got a color picture on the front page with a
headline that read, "Officer Rescues Goat.")
Two real disappointments of the weekend were the absences of Kris
Driessen and Deborah Clemm. Debbie, from Atlanta, was one of the first
two people to express interest in this quilt study group. Her plans were
cancelled at the last minute by the necessity to make up a meeting in
Washington D.C. that had been cancelled earlier because of weather.
Kris's scheduled flight, on the other hand, could not get into D.C. in
time to make it to Louisiana because flights into the capital were
backed up, because of heightened security concerns. Without Kris and QHL,
there would have been no DSQSG, and so all of us were lookng forward to
her being able to enjoy its fruition with us and were sincerely
disappointed she could not join us for our first meeting.. We hope both
Debbie and Kris will join us for a future meeting.
We are grateful to Kris Driessen, Amber Mohr and AQSG, Xenia Cord,
Judy Grow, Sue Reich, Judysue Kelius, Nona Sale, and Teddy Pruett for
their encouragement and doorprize offerings. Judy Grow also loaned a
fabric and quilt block notebook which inspired members to begin similar
collections.
Hosts for the meeting were Martha Gilbert, Ladye Harveston, Gaye
Ingram, and Susan Roach. Peggy Kierstead helped coordinate mailings and
represented our group at the AQSG fall seminar in Dallas. Stephanie
Hanson, Mary Lou Jones, Jay Conrad, Ladye Harveston, Peter Jones, and
Susan Roach provided photographs for our general report.
Those interested in participating in the activities of the Deep South
Quilt Study Group may contact Gaye Ingram, sending copy to Peggy
Kierstead.
The pictures below are thumbnails. Click on
them to see them closeup. |
Carolyn
Roller Miller (Fairview, TX) collection:Prince’s Feather
Fan
quilting and Dark Backing
