Antique Quilt Bed Turning

the bed turning was basically a way that ladies in the past could introduce to their neighbors and friends in the area their best handiwork and so what they would usually do in the olden days is when she wanted to show off her quilts that she'd make through the years she would invite all the ladies in town or from her church over and they would have refreshments in a day of bed turning and before the guests would arrive she would spread her quilts out on the bed like this maybe have a whole bunch of the quilts on the bed and when and they'd also be stacked up and when they arrived they gather around the bed to see her beautiful quilts and she would describe each one of her quilts in her workmanship as they would come off the bed and so this way they could really be up close and personal and see what a great seamstress she was back in those days that was a big part of a woman's acknowledgement in her family and in her community was how good of a handy stitcher she was so that was an important thing for her so we're going to start our bed turning today with our first quilt here it looks like it has some Civil War fabrics in it and it appears to be late 1800s to early 1900s these all came from shirts and dresses and skirts children's clothing men's shirts and women's dresses and then they were put into these quilts and Judy then just recently Hampi quilted this and made it into a quilt finally it had gone all that time stored somewhere and had never been put together and she just finally finished this so it was a nice addition to put that number one in our presentation today yes and she washed this quilt just as a as a note that this quilt had been stored in somebody's home it had been a smoker and so it was heavily heavily permeated with that cigarette smoke and she had she washed it you know like two or three times and soaked it to try to get that odor out of there so it's very difficult once that nicotine gets permeated into fabrics like that so that was number one the second one is a beautiful quilt called the drunkards path as a variation of a drunkards path it was likely made in the 1930s by a Melissa Hirsch Harshbarger of Benton Montana she stitched it on a white travel sewing machine which she also used to do the quilting now that's kind of interesting because we're talking 1930s and a lot of people kind of get the idea that oh my goodness you'd never would quilt a quilt on a sewing machine back then and if you look closely on this side maybe you can see the stitching up here but you can see that the stitching line is just big enough that's maybe you know seven inches or so and that would be just big enough for her to slide that under her treadle sewing machine throat and stitch that quilt treble sewing machines came out in 1864 and it didn't take women very long to figure out hey I can quilt these quilts a whole lot faster if I can put that on some kind of frame that they can I their husband in to make it for them and push that sucker through my turtle sewing machine look at that smile on that leaf even though her arm is breaking she's really happy that she can be building that thing on her treadle sewing machine so that's pretty incredible I think and so they were quilting these quilts on their on those machines quite early on and that was way before 1930 because you can tell by her dress that was probably before the turn of the century that she was quilting that myth that quilt so other names for this pattern however our drunkards Trail Indiana pumpkin vine old maids puzzle in the Boston Trail so another beautiful quilt there this quilt is a summer quilt it is very lightweight that was used on your bed in the summer time it is gray and white at this time and most though most of the fabrics are probably quite faded from what it was originally but they were probably more grays and whites and the real lighter colors were probably a darker Brown or even even more of the black colors that maybe had Sun fading along those edges this was probably made in the early 1900's and they were very into dark these were called Morgan fabrics and we're not talking early in the morning we're talking morning like mourning the dead and they were very typical of the early 1900s because Queen Victoria in that time was in deep mourning for the loss of her husband Albert and for many years she kept the trend that it was strict adherence to the fact that if someone in your family and your immediate family passed away you were to wear black for no less than a year so you imagine in those days with such high death rate of babies dying early you know low death low age for dying that women pretty much wore black whole time so so you know their dresses were most of the time out of black in these mourning fabrics and so that was a very popular color and so those were what was available for a lot of the quilts and this again is a is a lightweight summer quilt so the next quilt is a wool quilt and this is a beautiful quilt this is wool and it's made from men's of suiting material and this was all foundation pieced on to shirting just show the back real quick just a piece of the the back you can see where it was show sewn onto this block of fabric which was men's shirting material and then it was the blocks were sewn together into the quilt it's in excellent condition for wool quilts from and this was probably made into late 1800s and for a quilt of wool to have lasted in this condition this long is almost unheard of bugs love wool and even if you store it well they have a tendency to get into them and this has no fading no bug signs of bugs nothing so I don't think this quilt was ever really used it was just stored away and Judy LaSalle added the binding around it just recently and it was never finished so but it really was not meant to ever be have a batting and backing put on it either that when they sewed it on to that foundation piecing basically that's what it was meant to be a lot of times men's pants in those days were all out of wool summer in winter they wore wool pants for guys but they also you know a lot of women worked in the factories that made the pants and a lot of the samples that were left over from making of the pants a lot of times were were sold and given you know away to different stores to sell and so this may have been just sample fabric that somebody was able to procure and make into this so very very nice quilt this little quilt is a happy little quilt and this was made probably in the 30s and 40s judging by the fabric a lot of a lot of 30s fabric in there but there's a couple of 40s in there too these were cut in 30s and 40s by a Spokane Indian woman named Margaret Phillips Sherwood and she was the wife of a tribal chief chief Alex Sherwood and all of the butterflies were assembled and quilted than in 1989 by Barbara rutlander and she put the quilt together and then hand quilted it and so they had been all assembled but had never been put together so is embroidery around yes yes bro embroidery li'l embroidery around each one of the little butterflies so blanket stitch mm-hmm just a darling little butterfly quilt and a wonderful example of period fabric you know it's what some of these quilts just scream I'm from you know whatever era but you know did Bobby she's not - yes yes it was just the blocks okay this is a 16-patch quilt that was made by mrs. Thompson in the early 1890s for her expected child this quilt is tied every one and a half to two and a half inches and in place of binding the border was brought to the back and stitched down ray Thomas was born in April 5th 1894 in Iowa he was married but had no children in 1997 just before his death he gave this quilt to his nurse nurse and I'm not going to try to share name once you can tell me how I said for friction witchin okay Gert witchin as he was afraid his treasure would be destroyed we can tell it was treasured by the condition it is in which is in very nice condition there's some fading down at the at the very bottom but in other than that it's in very good condition he was living in Hamilton Montana at the time of his death he is buried here because I am a lover lover of old quilts and this is Fran's quilt and a member of the Heritage group Gert passed the quilt on to me for safekeeping so it's a darling quilt a lot of again those Indigo blues and what have you that kind of show you that it was around that end of the 1800s quilt okay so probably anybody can name this quilt the grandmothers flower garden and we have two of them here and then just to kind of show a little bit of difference of style the grandmothers flower garden was first published in the gotta knees magazine in 1835 but it didn't gain popularity until the 1930s traditionally the centers were yellow to represent the centers of flowers and green was used to represent the garden path becky Voisine acquired this quilt about five years ago a gift from a friend he had it for several years the makers unknown and the fabric used in the quilt is from the 30s his hand quilted around all the hexagons so cute little quilt definitely 30s and in in pretty decent condition and here's another grandmother's flower garden this one is also from the 30s and 40s this was a very very very popular pattern in the 30s for sure this was this is owned by Nicky Goss grandmothers flower garden was machine pieced and was hand quilted by a church ladies group who charged your grandmother was it charged your grandmother a whopping twenty-five dollars to hand quilt this unheard of okay this is a different arrangement than the previous garden quilt and this came to Nicky from her mother and her grandmother so another beautiful 30s example of a grandma's flower garden now this next quilt is quite amazing this quilt is all hand pieced and hand quilted the quilting pattern is a 3/4 inch grid with cable and a half inch circles with gridded centers feathered rings six stitches per inch it's just pretty amazing this is owned by Barbra Lozinski it was made for Cora Sophia Richert who was born in 1875 in Lancaster County Pennsylvania it is one of three identical quilts made for each one of her children by Cora's mother using the children's initials in the center of the quilt you can see this beautiful embroidered initials in the center the date of the quilt is 1880 according to lore someone in the neighborhood designed the embroidery patterns and then the patterns were passed around to other quilters this area covers only a few miles in Lancaster County this is a just an amazing quilt it is you know in my opinion pretty close to something that should be in a museum it is in gorgeous condition just beautiful now this quilt is from the early part of the 1900s it's all hand pieced and hand quilted it is very nicely executed and would have been a quilt that the owner was very proud of look closely at this quilt and see that there is only one fabric that is frayed badly in this quilt and that is that Center and then at the very points of the stars and that fabric is pretty much gone bye-bye and the reason that this happens is many fabrics of this time were dyed with very caustic dyes you can see you know why would one fabric do this and the rest are really fine the reason being that many of these dyes um contained iron fragments and so eat that iron microscopically back then they didn't realize what that iron was going to do to the fabric over time in those threads so this dye contributed to the breakdown of these certain fabrics much more quickly than the fabric that was not dyed in that manner so this is um all cotton and just very nice quilt other and then unfortunately that one fabric is kind of gone do you know what the dye excuse me what year was this was made in the early 1900s yep you don't know what the dye was it was called mordant and it was used in a lot of red fabric a lot of reds this is Judy LaSalle's quilt um it was pieced and hand quilted in a tea excuse me 1969 by Clara Dalton grey a mother of Judy LaSalle and the name of this quilt is her dad's ties and they are is a quite interesting quilt if you look at these ties because they go back to the 40s and you know there's just interesting some of the really wild designs that in these ties it's very dynamic with the ties radiating from the center and the border gives the viewer a lot to study she used some very interesting embroidery stitches and that add detail to the quilt and enhance its vintage nature so a very pretty tight our high quilt okay this is called a Washington sidewalk or Washington pavement quilt this is another quilt that's made in from the early 1900's it was made by melissa prophet Harshbarger and this was a quilt that belongs to Barbara rutlander also in 1915 this lady's family left Iowa and moved in homesteaded in Fort Benton where which they finally sold in 1941 this was a very popular pattern during the Civil War and this quilt has survived really quite well here's another very popular quilting pattern this is called a Dresden Plate Dresden Plate is the logo for the Bitterroot quilters guilt this is a very pretty executed 1930s Dresden Plate this was an unfinished quilt top was a gift to Barbara Breitling her from Kay Burke the quilter is unknown it was repaired assembled and hand quilted by Barbara in 2008 and I believe that Barbour put the border on I don't think that was part of the whole thing I can't remember this whole story behind it but there was a little added to it and she hand quilted it and here's another variation of the Dresden Plate this the border on this one that's called an ice cream cone border the estimated date of this quilt is the late 1930s or early 40s it was pieced by Edith Britain from Hamilton and was hand quilted by the Corvallis women's group it has some sun damage and it has been restored in those blocks it was given to Judy by Ming no how do you say mingyuan Conrad in May of 2001 Edith Edith was mignons aunt this little quilt is from the early 1900's this is not pieced this is all applicate on there the blue and white is appliquéd on to a solid white background this was blue and white quilts were very popular during the early part of the 1900s they were kind of showcased by women as their best hand-done quilts many owners of their of these blue and white quilts they show their best handiwork the master bedroom in the early in the Victorian homes was usually off of the parlor and so when they knew they were having they didn't use them on their beds on a daily basis but when they knew they were having company they would put their best quilts on the master bed so that people from the parlor could see their best work and of course hopefully would go oh can I see your best oh can I go see that and so these quilts were displayed and this poor little quilt however was given to me in a black garbage bag with a full of mice droppings and worse and it had been stored in a garage and the mice had made a wonderful little home in it so I had to cut off one whole section off the top so I could repair some of the some of the applique in other races and you can if you look closely you can see some of the repair spots but it was I thought it was worth salvaging at least and but the first thing I had to do was put it in some hot water and some disinfectant and soak in a few times up but but it just come out okay so this is a wedding ring quilt this is another kind of interesting iki story this is a quilt is owned by Sharon Renfro and she purchased this quilt when she was at the Houston quilt show a few years ago and she saw it at this booth where this guy had all these beautiful quilts and the she said you know I can't afford any of your coil so he goes well I have one you might be able to afford and she goes okay and so he showed her this one in a sack and it was filthy dirty and it was covered with bug juice and you could feel the crunchy bugs inside of it and it stunk and it was filthy dirty inch she goes what do you want for it and she didn't tell me how much she paid but she said it was a whole lot more reasonable than the rest of them and so he said I don't know if any of that will come clean or not you know if you buy it at your at your own risk he said I'm sorry I bought it in first place so she went she bought it and she went down to a gal who was selling quilt cleaning stuff and she bought the quote cleaning stuff and she took it home and she soaked at about three four times and and it took it all out and she said I mean there's hardly a stain on it she couldn't believe it so she's real happy with it and she said it's all hand quilting and it appears to be hand pieced also obviously from the 30s and she said the only thing is she was a little upset that it got so clean because it almost doesn't look antique inning or vintage anymore good so that is a along with the mice there's bugs that get in them too you know yeah neater neater and this is another quilt from Sharon Renfro this is a summer coverlet and this is kind of interesting just show them the edging just flip over the edge there so they can see the edging this is not got a back or a batting in it however every piece in this coverlet is whip stitched so this was never intended to have batting and a backing okay this is meant to be a summer coverlet so they just put an edging around it and so it's very lightweight it's from the 40s it's definitely 40s fabric it was found in 1998 in the basement of an old brownstone in New York City they she has no idea who made it and it was the guy who found it was going to throw it away and then he gave it to Sharon's mother and then Sharon's mother sent it to Sharon and said Sharon get this quilted for me and Sharon said it's not supposed to be quilted she goes well I don't want it if it's not quilted and she says was of equal that it's a coverlet and she goes well then you keep it and Sharon goes okay so so she said so now I've got this girl that she loves it so that's the story of that one then but so all quilts are not meant to have you know batting and backing they they made a lot of coverlets this way I bought one um years ago that was out of rayon from the 40s and it's it was painstakingly whip stitch just like this everything you know how rayon rabble's and they just whip stitched every single edge yeah so it won't so it doesn't Ravel it would have been easier to just put some yeah well Serge it easier seven time ok and last o'clock not least um is that our heritage group uh put this quilt together they I can't say we because I was not here at the time I moved to Bend for a few years so I hate to include myself because I was not involved in this but the group finished the piecing they layered it with adding and they hand quilted it the binding was cut on the bias so that it could go around those edges and so now everybody shares in the ownership of it and um kind of passes it around and everybody gets to use it and so that's our little quilt and we kind of salvage this from rack and ruin too by putting it together so that's our little bed turning presentation so thank you so much

Channel: Patchwork Quilts

Views: 61,457

Rating: 4.9193277 out of 5

Keywords: quilt, quilts, patchwork, patchwork quilts, Hamilton (City/Town/Village), hamilton montana, bed turning, antique

Id: sFuJo6AARCs

Length: 26min 19sec (1579 seconds)

Published: Tue May 20 2014