One of the quilts in the collection from Hannah Hauxwell’s house was a red and white Chain quilt. It was folded up on top of several other quilts so only a small portion of it was showing, but it looked familiar. When I hunted through my photos of old quilts I discovered that two of my friends had quilts very like this one.
Ann Jermey’s quilt is exactly the same Single Irish Chain design as the one in Hannah’s collection, but Ann’s is a coverlet – that is, it has no wadding. It is (like Hannah’s) in excellent condition and looks to have been scarcely used – perhaps the summers were never quite warm enough! Ann’s quilt has been stitched with a simple allover crosshatch pattern to hold the two layers together. It is ten blocks by eleven, but looks to have been cut down from a larger quilt. The binding is white and a different fabric from that used in the quilt – adding to the feeling that the original quilt was larger.
Barbara Chainey’s quilt on the other hand is a slightly more elaborate block and has been so well used that all the red squares have quite worn away. The Turkey Red dye didn’t do fabric any favours and the fabric rotted quite quickly where the quilt was in the sun, and probably not helped by the fact that it was a light-weight twill.
One or two of the blocks at the edges and corners of the quilt have survived a little better which give us a clearer idea of the design. This quilt also has a wide red border and has been finished edge to edge – in other words the back and front fabrics are folded in towards the quilt (one of them over the wadding) and then carefully stitched close to the edge.
Interestingly Barbara’s has been quilted with the exact same quilting pattern as that in many of the quilts in Hannah Hauxwell’s collection – a simple, traditional, strippy quilting pattern with a repeating reversed curve filled with a grid. Barbara tells me this was a very common design used on all sorts of quilts – not just strippy ones – as it was relatively quick and easy to do on a traditional quilting frame.
Once the catalogue for the sale was published I discovered that there were in fact two of these Turkey Red and white chain quilts from Hannah’s collection, both the same pattern – the other one was an unfinished quilt top. Both were listed as late 19th century as are Ann’s and Barbara’s. The finished top has been quilted with a traditional triple cable design.
Ann, Barbara and I have started documenting our quilt collections and producing patterns based on them. This Irish Chain pattern is one we have already done, so if you want to make one yourself you can find a pattern for it on our Heritage Quilts Payhip page. Although traditionally a red and white pattern, it looks great in other colours too – blue and white is another popular way to make it these days.
Responses