QUILTING SNIPPETS

By MARY DAVIS

As long as women have lived in reasonable proximity to each other, they have found reasons to gather together. It's in their DNA. Whether it was collecting water at the well, going to market, congregating at the river to wash laundry, or charity projects, women have come together.

While researching one topic or another, I ran across a book in the library about antique quilts and the gatherings (often called quiltings) that took place to create them. Throughout the book, the author quoted various newspaper articles about these socializing events. I found some of them fascinating and others humorous, so I thought I’d share a few.

I wonder if some eager young ladies purposefully sewed slowly.
 

Some sage advice

Mitchell Daily Republican, Mitchell, South Dakota, July 1, 1886, page 4

"It is entirely unfair for a man to sneer at a woman’s inability to understand a baseball game until he has proven his own ability to grapple with the mysteries of a crazy quilt social.—Fall River Advance”

 

Shhhhh! The deafening sound of silence.

Ingenious men in California and Illinois succeeded where, for centuries, others have failed. They devised a way to get women to stop talking!

 

In 1883 in California, a senator “offered the Lady’s Aid Society, $5 if they would make a quilt without speaking a word. Twenty-three ladies met…, made the quilt and earned the money in two hours.”
 

In Illinois in 1899, three men offered the fifteen members of the Ladies’ Aid society $1 a piece for their society to sew without talking. In the August heat, they worked for three weary hours without speaking a word. They used signs and nods to make their needs known. The impressed men doubled their contribution. This silent quilting event was touted as a world record.

 

This one really piqued my interest.

“Bachelors at a Quilting” — In 1883 in New Jersey, bachelors of a church congregation were convinced to produce a quilt. The date was set and a ten cent admission fee was charge for spectators. The men labored for several hours before the ladies came to their rescue and completed the quilt. “Among the bachelor quilters were a railroad man, a printer, two brick manufacturers, and no tailor.”
 

I knew I needed to use that idea in a story at some point and let it percolate in the back of my mind until . . . it spawned one of the threads in The Lady’s Mission (The Quilting Circle 5). It was so much fun to explore this idea.

 

Another bachelor-type quilt was a sort of trade.

In 1888 in Connecticut, the young people of a church decided to help replenish the church’s treasury. The men pieced together a bed quilt in front of a large crowd that had paid ten cents for the privilege of watching the men perspire over the quilt.

 

A few days later, an equally large crowd gathered to watch the ladies saw wood. Ten pretty maidens sawed a half-cord of wood into stove-sized pieces. The young men sang to the ladies as they sawed and sawed then succeeded! I need to use this one in a story as well.

It seems various ladies’ organizations came together to create quilts to raise money for one cause or another, whether it was something needed for their church building, a quilt to welcome their new pastor, a family in need, or to support one war or another and provide for soldiers. They worked hard to raise money and help others.

DNA is a powerful thing. Women have always sought out like-minded others with which to socialize, and their busy hands accomplished great things.

THE LADY’S MISSION (Quilting Circle 5) NOW AVAILABLE!

Will Cordelia abandon her calling for love? Cordelia Armstrong wants nothing more than to escape the social norms for her station in society. Unless she can skillfully maneuver her father into giving up control of her trust fund, she might have to concede defeat—as well as her freedom—and marry. Every time Lamar Kesner finds a fascinating lady, her heart belongs to another. When a vapid socialite is offered up as a prospective bride, he contemplates flying off in his hot air balloon instead. Is Lamar the one to finally break the determination of Cordelia’s parents to marry her off? Or will this charming bachelor fly away with her heart?

 

Available for order on Amazon.

 

MARY DAVIS, bestselling, award-winning novelist, has over thirty titles in both historical and contemporary themes. Her latest release is THE DÉBUTANTE'S SECRET (Quilting Circle 4) THE DAMSEL’S INTENT (Quilting Circle 3) is a Selah Award Winner. Some of her other recent titles include; The Widow’s Plight, The Daughter's Predicament, “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection , Prodigal Daughters Amish series, and "Bygones" in Thimbles and Threads. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of thirty-eight years and one cat. She has three adult children and three incredibly adorable grandchildren. Find her online at:

 Books2Read  Newsletter  Blog   FB  FB Readers Group   Amazon   GoodReads   BookBub

 

Source:

Quiltings, Frolicks & Bees: 100 Years of Signature Quilts by Sue Reich

 

QUILTING FROLICKS, BEES, & CIRCLES

Women coming together to quilt is a long held tradition, dating back two centuries or more. These events are referenced in newspapers back to the early nineteenth century, though these gatherings were likely going on long before they were reported about. In the early days, these assemblies were known as quilting frolicks. Frolick: to play and move about cheerfully, excitedly, or energetically. At some point the “k” was dropped.

There were a lot of activities that used the term “frolick” such as corn husking frolick and apple paring frolick. Usually the frolicking came after the main task was completed when the event turned to music, dancing, and playing games. Another purpose for these for these gatherings was to bring young folks together to get to know one another. When people are spread out across the open countryside, a shindig like a frolick was important.

Quilting frolicks became quilting bees. Today we think of “bee” most closely associated with children standing in front of room spelling words. Like frolick, bee was used with many activities including quilting, corn husking, apple butter boilings, and more. The industrious activity of the people working reminded one of an active beehive.

Among other activities, it seems a bit of gossip went on.

Neighboring farmer would unite with their teams when a new settler arrived in an area to help cut timber and build him a log house in a single day. This was called a “raising bee.”

Quiltings were also referred to as quilting parties with much the same goings on as frolicks and bees. Here is a great story of one such quilting party.

Batchelors at a Quilting Party
“… Preparatory to a fair to be given by the Warren Street Methodist Church … twelve batchelors of the congregation were induced by the ladies to agree to furnish a quilt of their own making. Thursday evening was fixed as the time for the quilting bee, and an admission fee of ten cents was charged. The batchelors surrounded the quilting frame and worked conscientiously with needles and thread for several hours until the ladies came to their relief and helped complete the quilt. The quilt is said to be a triumph of art. It is composed of sunflowers, old maids, batchelors, baskets, and other quilt combinations, and will be offered for sale at the fair. Among the batchelor quilters were a railroad man, a printer, two brick manufacturers, and no tailor.”

Chester Times 

Chester, Pennsylvania 

December 10, 1883, page 12 

This must have been quite the sight and the event of the year! My guess is a few of these brave bachelors caught the eye of a young lady or two. I’m going to have to write a story or two about a group of such bachelors. They sound like the kinds of men my heroines would fall in love with.

Frolicks and bees seemed to be events that weren’t in a person’s or community’s regular schedule. Whereas a quilting circle denotes more of a regular meeting of ladies for quilting and socializing. These would be a group of ladies who gathered on a reoccuring basis to socialize and sew.

If this was the case, I wonder how many young ladies sewed extra slow—especially toward the end—so they could take the last stitch.

In my Quilting Circle series, I chose to call my group a circle because they meet regularly, are dear friends, and help each other. Using the term circle likely came from the women sitting in a circle around a quilting frame.

Whether you call it a frolick, a bee, a circle, or a plain quilting, getting together with others to complete a task makes the work lighter and more enjoyable.

Happy Quilting!

NEW!
THE DAUGHTER'S PREDICAMENT (Book 2 in the Quilting Circle series )

Can a patient love win her heart?
   As Isabelle Atwood’s romance prospects are turning in her favor, a family scandal derails her dreams. While making a quilt for her own hope chest, Isabelle’s half-sister becomes pregnant out of wedlock and Isabelle--always the unfavored daughter--becomes the family sacrifice to save face. Despite gaining the attention of a handsome rancher, her parents are pressuring her to marry a man of their choosing to rescue her sister’s reputation. A third suitor waits silently in the wings, hoping for his own chance at love. Isabelle ends up with three marriage proposals, but this only further confuses her decision.
   A handsome rancher, a stranger, and an unseen suitor are all waiting for an answer. Isabelle loves her sister, but will she really allow herself to be manipulated into a marriage without love? Will Isabelle capitulate and marry the man her parents wish her to, or will she rebel and marry the man they don’t approve of? Or will the man leaving her secret love poems sweep her off her feet?


MARY DAVIS s a bestselling, award-winning novelist of over two dozen

titles in both historical and contemporary themes. Her 2018 titles include; "Holly and Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection (January), Courting Her Amish Heart (March), The Widow’s Plight (July), Courting Her Secret Heart (September), “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection (December), and Courting Her Prodigal Heart (January 2019). Coming in 2019, The Daughter's Predicament (May) and "Bygones" in Thimbles and Threads (July). She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups. Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of over thirty-four years and two cats. She has three adult children and two incredibly adorable grandchildren. Find her online at:

Newsletter Blog FB FB Readers Group Amazon GoodReads BookBub

Amazing Grace: Quiltmaker Extraordinaire

A footnote from history by Stephanie Grace Whitson

Detail, Petit Point Basket by
Grace McCance Snyder
photograph by
Stephanie Whitson

For this lover of most things historical, visiting a new place usually means checking out at least one museum. The state history museum in Lincoln, Nebraska, was one of the first places I visited as a new resident. I was drawn to a display case on the main floor of the museum, where the largest piece of needlepoint I'd ever seen was on display. Imagine my amazement when I got close enough to realize that it wasn't needlepoint. I was looking at a pieced quilt, with the tiniest patches I had ever seen. How was piecing such tiny triangles even possible? 

That museum visit introduced me to Grace McCance Snyder, who came to Nebraska in 1885. She was three years old, and would later recount, "I do not remember the ride through the hills to Poppie's claim, but I can still see the homestead as it looked when we pulled into it that day--just two naked little soddies squatting on a bare, windswept ridge above a narrow, winding canyon." 

Grace's first Nebraska home was a 12 x 14 sod house built by her father. It had a wood floor, and "after the walls settled Poppie plastered them with a smooth, hard finish of canyon clay and water. A coat of whitewash every six months or so kept them clean and white." As a mother herself, Grace would one day look back and say, "... to Mama it must have seemed poor and desolate ... she had grown up among the green fields and woods of Missouri where she lived in a big white house ... I wonder, now, how she stood the hard life we lived, those first years in Nebraska."

Grace McCance Snyder's memoir, No Time on My Hands, was one of the first books I read about pioneer days in Nebraska. It's wonderful reading, but it's Snyder's incredible quilts that have won her fame. 

Snyder's first quilt was "played to death," since Grace was the second of seven girls, but it's creation is a touching part of her story. It was her job to herd her father's cattle on the open prairie. Finding the task lonesome, Grace begged her mother for some scraps of fabric, and pieced her first quilt--a four-patch doll quilt. 

As a teenager hired to teach three boys on a remote ranch, Grace remembered that the rancher's wife thought it improper for the schoolteacher to help with everyday chores. As a result, "From the time I left the schoolroom until bedtime, I had nothing to do except work on my pretty quilt and write a few letters ... if it hadn't been for the letters from home ... I would have curled up and died of homesickness long before Christmas."

The Snyder's wedding photo

As a newlywed, Grace would use the quilt she'd made during that long, lonely winter to cover canned goods boxes on which she laid an old bedspring. Voila: a couch. Her daughter, Bertie, remembered, "As soon as supper was done, Mama's day's work was mostly over. She went to her rocker in the living room. She either crocheted or cut and sewed quilt pieces." Nellie shared, "Mother pieced all the quilts we ever used for bedding ... she belonged to a club that made quilts, too: it was their 'welfare work.' But all the time she was also making the lovely quilts of her own that she kept to use or to give as gifts to relatives and friends." 

Grace Snyder on her way
to vote for the first time.

April 20, 1920, women had just received the right to vote in Nebraska, and a 38-year-old Grace Snyder donned her best riding habit and rode nine miles northeast of the ranch to a one-room country schoolhouse to vote. 

It wasn't until after her two daughters had graduated high school and left home that Grace turned their bedroom into a sewing room and began to make what she would call her "show quilts."  

Detail, Petit Point Basket,
photographed by Stephanie Grace Whitson

The quilt I saw that long-ago day at the museum is perhaps the most famous. Created in 1942-43, Petit Point Basket is based on a china pattern.

Inspiration for Grace McCance Snyder's
Petit Point Basket Quilt
Author's collection

Eight of the over 85,000 tiny triangles sewn together create a quilt block about the size of a stamp.

In 1999, when Quilter's Newsletter Magazine asked 29 quilt experts to select the 100 best American quilts of the 20th Century, over half of them chose this quilt in the first round of nominations. The quilt is treasured by the Nebraska History Museum, and if you ever visit Lincoln, you can see it by opening the drawer of the special display case constructed to protect this national treasure from the ravages of dust and light. 

When she was 91, Grace asked to return to the ranch (from the house where she lived with a daughter in town) and ride a saddle horse again. She did it. She was 98 years old when she was inducted into the Quilters Hall of Fame in 1980, and passed away quietly in her sleep at the age of 100. Her descendants still own the ranch where she and husband Bert put down roots. And they treasure the quilts she created.

See more of Grace McCance Snyder's show quilts here: http://www.quiltstudy.org/quilt/20090320002  

Did you know about Grace McCance Snyder? Have you seen any of her quilts? What artifact or place makes you wonder about the past?

___________________________________________________

No Time On My Hands undoubtedly played a role in my becoming a novelist. Just as quiltmaking helped Grace McCance through a long, hard winter, quiltmaking provides an escape for Jane Prescott in The Key on the Quilt. Jane is serving a ten-year-sentence at the Nebraska State Penitentiary, even as she hides a startling secret. A caring physician will eventually help unravel the hidden meaning behind Jane's Courthouse Steps quilt.

The Key on the Quilt is only $2.99 as an ebook. 

Learn more here: https://www.amazon.com/Key-Quilt-Chronicles/dp/161626442X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1530994477&sr=8-1&keywords=the+key+on+the+quilt

Civil War Quilts

A Footnote from History by Stephanie Grace Whitson

The wind is beginning to blow and I think we going to have failing weather. . . O, dear, where are you tonight? … and how are you doing laying on the cold ground with only two blankets to cover with. How it makes me shudder.” [Nancy Higgins of Illinois, writing to her soldier husband in 1862]

Artists, stitchers, textile experts, history lovers, and storytellers alike all share the same curiosity when it comes to antique quilts. Who made it? Why? Did the stitching help its maker cope with sorrow? Was it quilted by a group a friends? Did children play beneath the quilting frame? 

More often than not, the years have separated antique quilts from their makers. More often than not, the maker's name is unknown, the stories long forgotten. But not always.

Many quilts connected with the Civil War were made long before the war itself. Mothers and sisters, grandmothers and fiances sometimes sent their men off to war with a quilt from home. In many communities, ladies went door to door collecting quilts and blankets to be shipped to men in the field where they provided literal and emotional comfort during long separations. It's impossible to know how many quilts were reduced to little more than rags during the long years of the war. When you picture a Civil War army encampment, imagine quilts in those tents or on the ground. I remember seeing a patchwork quilt draped over a tent in one period photograph of a war camp.  

This quilt bears the United States Sanitary Commission's stamp on the back. What does that mean? It means it was made in response to the call for quilts for soldiers during the Civil War. Sometimes called "pot-holder quilts," this style of quilt consists of individual blocks, their raw edges bound before the blocks were stitched together to form a long, narrow quilt that was just the right size for a hospital cot (approximately 48 x 84 inches). It's estimated that women made at least 150,000 Sanitary Commission quilts after the call went out in 1863. Read more about these quilts here: http://worldquilts.quiltstudy.org/americanstory/engagement/sanitary. 

My favorite "after the war" quilt story is about this gem housed at the Tennessee history museum in Nashville. The quilt was sent to Martha Jane Edwards and her daughter, Mary Lavenia, of Fosterville, Tennessee, to say thank you for their having hidden a wounded Union soldier during the Battle of Stones River.

Another post-war quilt story is represented by this Log Cabin quilt, made in Lexington, MO for a Methodist Episcopal church bazaar to raise money to benefit the families of ex-Confederate soldiers. The woman who first proposed making the quilt donated a swatch from a silk dress embroidered with a winged insect to be the center of each log cabin block. The quilt brought $206 at auction.

Untold quilt stories continue to inspire today. 

Does your family history include a quilt story?

_________________________________

Stephanie Grace Whitson celebrated her 20th year as a published novelist in 2014. The first book in her 3-book Quilt Chronicles series, The Key on the Quilt, was inspired by a quilt in a museum collection in Tucson, Arizona. Learn more here: http://www.amazon.com/Key-Quilt-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B006GIXVAG/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1441895141&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Key+on+the+Quilt

  

Civil War Stitches

A footnote from history by Stephanie Grace Whitson

Neither the Union nor the Confederate governments were prepared to field armies when the Civil War first began. The most obvious need was for uniforms for the tens of thousands of volunteers. President Lincoln's first call was for 75,000 volunteers. An estimated 4.5 yards of fabric were needed per uniform. that's 337,500 yards (or 191.76 miles) of fabric just for trousers and jackets. Who made those uniforms? Well, at the outset of the war, governments contracted with factories, but they couldn't work fast enough. Women stepped up, and they did made a lot more than just uniforms.

Women made the regimental flags carried into battle. The photo below

shows a detail of one such flag presented by the ladies of St. Louis to a regiment serving with the Missouri Guard. Those bears are created with silk thread, one stitch at a time. The flag flew outside the regimental commander's tent. Other regimental flags made by women were carried into battle. 

Once war broke out, sewing circles that already existed to benefit the destitute immediately added filling soldiers' needs to their cause, providing shirts and socks, blankets and quilts, for the boys and men volunteering from their town or region.

"My dear friend, you are not my husband nor son; but you are the husband or son of some woman who undoubtedly loves you as I love mine. I have made these garments for you with a heart that aches for your sufferings ..." [note included in a Sanitary Commission shipment] 

As the war went on and hospitals began to fill with the wounded, women produced hospital shirts and bandages. One impressive statistic: by war's end, the Northwestern Sanitary Commission headquartered in Chicago had supplied 267,936 pounds of bandages, compresses, and lint (lint was used for packing wounds and created by unraveling linen towels or "scraping" other household textiles to break down the fibers). 

"My dear boy, I have knit these socks expressly for you. How do you like them? ... Write and tell me all about yourself, and how you get on in the hospitals ..." [note included in a Sanitary Commission shipment]

Women knitted socks and mittens, the latter created from a pattern developed to incorporate a trigger finger. The Western Sanitary Commission headquartered in St. Louis had, by war's end, provided 78,656 pairs of socks.

In the early stages of the war, women collected quilts and blankets. When the supply ran out, they began to make cot-sized quilts and tied comforters (15,131 comforts from the Northwestern Sanitary Commission and 40,574 blankets and comforts from the Western Sanitary Commission), along with 100,000 pillow cases. 

The numbers are a bit staggering, aren't they? In an era when we buy the textiles we need for our families, it's difficult to imagine having to make literally everything a soldier might need in the field. 

"She'd sat up half the night making Seamus his own mending kit--a replica of the one a teary-eyed Bridget Feeny had presented to Jack yesterday afternoon. The soldiers called them housewives, Bridget said. Making one for Seamus had given Maggie something productive to do last night, when sleep simply would not come." From Daughter of the Regiment

Housewife (soldier's mending kit)

Soldiers had to do their own mending in camp, and so women made mending kits referred to as "housewives." Many different examples survive in museum collections. I photographed the one at left when I visited a museum exhibit about Illinois women's efforts during the war.

"Feed the Hungry" quilt

Civil War women were very well aware of the importance of what they were doing. Some referred to their sewing groups as "needle regiments." With the conclusion of the war, they didn't stop stitching for the benefit of soldiers and their families. Raffle quilts raised funds to benefit destitute families of wounded warriors. The one at left was created and raffled by a Methodist Episcopal ladies group in Lexington, Missouri. Across the surface of the quilt, the words "feed the hungry" reminded survivors that the war might be over, but the need for women's stitches had not ended. 

The tradition of sewing for soldiers continues today. One example is Quilts of Valor, created to "cover service members and veterans touched by war with comforting and healing Quilts of Valor." 

Have you ever sent a care package to a modern-day warrior? Are you part of a contemporary "needle regiment" making Quilts of Valor? God bless you.

______________

Stephanie learned about "Civil War stitches" while researching her book Daughter of the Regiment. This fall, you'll be able to read about Civil War stitchers in her novella appearing in A Basket Brigade Christmas, a Civil War collection written with Nancy Moser and Judith Miller. Stay tuned!

http://www.amazon.com/Daughter-Regiment-Stephanie-Grace-Whitson/dp/1455529036

An inspiring story of discovering courage and friendship through tremendous adversity. Drawing on the actual histories of women who found ways to work on the battlefront during the Civil War, this outstanding historical will attract fans of Janette Oke, Lisa Wingate, and Tamera Alexander. *Starred review* Library Journal

Based on true events, this story will capture the hearts of historical fiction fans. Publishers Weekly