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Quilt Pattern
Hands Quilting Patterns on Antique Quilts
Which hand quilted patterns were stitched into American quilts manufactured in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? Nine common patterns seen from this quilt historian are described here.
1. Clamshell is probably the earliest patterns. These were stitched allover the very best on whole cloth and patchwork quilts or as the background between other quilting patterns.
2. Feathers were most typical on pre-Civil War fancy and elaborate quilts which were used on special events, or given as a gift. The feather was not shaped like a bird's long pointed feathers; these folks were short like a flower petal, and rounded at the end. Feathered designs were stitched in many different motifs such as a garland, wreath, pineapple, and heart. Feathered designs were commonly used on red and green appliqué quilts produced in the middle years of the Nineteenth century and on Colonial Revival style appliqué quilts stated in the 20th Century ahead of the second World War.
3. Hanging diamonds were squares on point, often used in conjunction with feathered patterns. They are often large or small in size. They were stitched around appliquéd pieces to hold the batting on place and fill in the backdrop areas of the quilt. After the Civil War the dimensions of the handing diamond increased also it became the sole quilting pattern on some patchwork quilts. Larger size diamonds are located on vintage quilts.
4. Another common choice for an all over pattern patchwork and utilitarian quilts is
a square grid. As the allover pattern, the squares were large to larger in proportions. As the background pattern, they were smaller with regards to the patchwork or appliquéd pattern. Here again, a special quilt received smaller grids, which filled the empty areas to hold the batting and layers together well.
5&6. Cables and chevrons were stitched into borders and sashing strips. Cables were connected curved "S" shapes running vertically down a border or sashing. Chevron's were straight lines forming "V's" filling the width from the border in a zigzag shape. One, two, and three lines decreasing in dimensions formed the cables and chevrons. Both century's quilt makers used these two patterns.
7. Single and Double parallel lines were usually quilted on the diagonal across the entire quilt or just in the borders. Pre-Civil War quilts could have triple parallel lines, stitched close together without anyone's knowledge areas around appliqués as well as in the borders. Inside the late nineteenth century, women also quilted lines across the appliquéd pieces. Double and single lines, spaced further apart than earlier quilts, were stitched in vintage era quilts.
8. Fan quilting can be called elbow quilting as the quilter used the reach from her elbow to her fingers to make the arch or fan shape. Methodist Fan and Baptist Fan have been popular names for the fan too, because it was fast and easy pattern for a number of church women to stitch around a large quilting frame. In England the fan is called waves. The pattern was common later within the last quarter of the 19th and first half of Twentieth century quilts, and particularly popular in the Southern and southern Midwestern states. The fan was mostly applied to everyday quilts.
9. The one-quarter inch in the seam stitching was sometimes known as "quilting through the piece" or "in the piece" reflecting exactly how it appeared. This pattern was used occasionally in the mid-nineteenth century on, never as a common pattern until the late Last century. |