House &• Garden 
Jfunuture of historic 
Cfjarm anb interest 
/<Xood judgment in the planning of an 
interior more often achieves success 
than does lavish expenditure. 
M7T Indeed, many delightful rooms owe 
Tu their chief charm to the harmonious 
arrangement of a few well-chosen appoint¬ 
ments—each piece of Furniture being so 
admirably disposed in relation to its setting 
that the whole effect is pleasing beyond 
expression. 
tffl The opportunity to attain such results 
J is nowhere better presented than at 
these interesting Galleries, whether merely 
an occasional piece or two, or an entire 
ensemble, is required for the scheme in 
view. Here one may acquire, at well within 
moderate cost, the Furniture, the quaint 
Decorative Objects and the Oriental Rugs 
which will impart to their surroundings 
historic interest and an engaging sense of 
livability. 
Suggestions may be gained from de luxe prints 
of successful interiors, sent gratis upon request. 
NcuTlfJork d>alW ice 
Grand Rapids Furniture Company 
INCORPORATED 
34^36West 32-Street 
New'York City 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF OLD-TIME 
PATCHWORK QUILTS 
By MABEL TUKE PRIESTMAN 
W ITHIN the last decade or so the 
growth of the desire for things 
simple and for living close to 
nature has resulted in an increasing 
love for old-time occupations and homes 
bearing the impress of our ancestors. 
A Real American Product 
There always seems to be something 
distinctly American in the patchwork 
quilt; as it speaks of pioneer days when 
the life of every house mother was one 
of continuous toil and effort to make 
the most of everything that came within 
her reach. Each little bit of calico left 
over from the home-made dresses; each 
little bit of chintz that could be saved 
after covering furniture, were collected 
and utilized in the making of the patch- 
work quilts. Leisure hours were em¬ 
ployed in piecing together gay colored 
scraps. Even the children of the house¬ 
hold spent their time in making patches 
for quilts, so that by the end of the win¬ 
ter the patchwork had accumulated 
sufficiently to enable them to have a 
quilting party. These occasions were 
long looked forward to and often were 
the great events of the year. Everyone 
in the neighborhood would be invited to 
the quilting parties which were all-day 
affairs in many cases. 
In one day six or eight nimble work¬ 
ers would be able to quilt a bed cover, 
so that if there were three times that 
number, three completed quilts would be 
added to the provident housewife’s linen 
closet. As it was the custom for every 
family to piece quilts-and have quilting 
parties, the hostess would be at all the 
nearby quilting occasions, which were 
generally planned so as to suit the con¬ 
venience of the majority. 
A bountiful lunch was served, and 
sometimes an early tea, after which the 
ladies went home; but more frequently 
a later tea was provided at which hus¬ 
bands and brothers appeared, and some¬ 
times sweethearts—and the evenings 
were spent in jovial pastimes. These 
old-time quilting parties were looked 
upon as great events and were the ex¬ 
cuse for generous entertainment. 
The amount of labor required to 
make a patchwork quilt and the thou¬ 
sands of tiny stitches that were sewn 
into them in the following out of intri¬ 
cate designs, give one a heartache to¬ 
day, and we wonder whether injured 
eyesight and wornout nerves were not 
often the result of these arduous tasks. 
This beautiful needle work has sur¬ 
vived for nearly two centuries. Some 
credit must also be given to the quality 
of the fabrics and materials made in 
those days, for when these old pieces are 
brought to light the colors are as beau¬ 
tiful as of old, with a mellowing that 
only age can give. 
The oldest quilts show a great deal 
more quilting in the background than 
those made during the last century. 
Many of the later quilts are pieced to¬ 
gether in rather a hit-or-miss style, and 
the result is sometimes very ugly to say 
the least. But the older quilts are much 
more artistic. The ground work is often 
a mass of delicate stitches tracing un¬ 
usual and intricate patterns and done 
by hand in the quilting frames. 
In the making of the “Turkey Track” 
quilt, two months were spent in quilting 
the background. This particular Cover 
is one of the most lovely that the writer 
has come across in the quest for old- 
time quilts. There are so many differ¬ 
ent designs in each square, and not an 
inch of background that is not covered 
by a dainty bit of stitchery. 
The names given to the various pat¬ 
terns are quaintly distinctive. Job’s 
Trouble, Log Cabin, The Rising Sun, 
Crow’s Foot, Dove in the Window, and 
floral names are well known among 
patchwork quilters. These are not al¬ 
ways known by the same names in the 
various localities. 
How the Quilts Are Made 
The making of the quilts is done in 
the following manner: When the patch- 
work is finished it is laid on a lining 
with layers of wool or cotton wadding 
between it and the lower lining. The 
patchwork is then basted on and the 
whole fastened into the wooden frames 
ready for the quilting. The frames are 
adjustable so that the workers can roll 
up the quilts until they reach the center. 
The blue and white bed-spreads that 
were woven by our ancestors are sought 
after as eagerly as the patchwork quilts. 
While it is considered more or less a 
revived industry, there are weavers in 
the mountains of Kentucky, East Ten¬ 
nessee, Virginia and Louisiana, where 
the occupation of weaving coverlids is 
still carried on just as it was in the days 
of long ago. It is one of the oldest in¬ 
dustries, as we read of the Gauls in the 
Bronze age weaving some of the identi¬ 
cal designs ‘'’at are still seen in the 
American coverlids of to-day. 
It is generally understood that the 
coverlid weaving was introduced into 
America by the Dutch. The Pennsyl¬ 
vania Dutch who migrated to North 
Carolina have always carried on this 
interesting handicraft. The French 
peasantry who settled in Arcadia, and 
finally found a home in Louisiana have 
kept up to this day the industry of 
coverlid weaving as well as a number 
of artistic dress materials and cotton- 
ades, dyed with home made dyes, which 
articles are disposed of through Arts and 
Crafts centers. 
The names of the coverlids are very 
much like those of the patchwork quilts, 
which fact is often responsible for the 
two very different occupations being 
confounded. They are called by quaint, 
odd names such as “Girl’s Love,” 
“Queen’s Fancy,” “Everybody’s Beauty.” 
“Rose in Bloom,” “Indian March,” 
“Primrose and Diamonds,” “Boston 
Beauty,” “Perry’s Victory,” “Lady 
Washington’s Delight,” “Wheels of 
Fancy,” “Chariot Wheels and Church 
Windows,” “Rosy Walk,” “Baltimore 
Beauty,” “Missouri Trouble,” “Wash¬ 
ington's Victory,” “Winding Blades and 
Folding Windows,” “Rose in Garden” 
and “Washington’s Victory.” 
As each weaver tried to be original 
in her designs, she also liked to name 
each of them. A domestic occurrence 
or some national event usually influ¬ 
enced the choice of a name. 
These woven coverlids were made of 
wool and cotton, the chain or warp 
usually being of white cotton, while the 
filling was half cotton and half wool. 
Invariably the wool was dyed with mad¬ 
der or indigo, these two colors in their 
various hues nearly always being used 
by the various weavers. Occasionally 
yellow and white are found. 
The weaving was very different from 
that of rag carpet weaving in the hand 
loom. The loom is threaded by means 
of a draft, which is a slip of paper di¬ 
vided into little squares, one for each 
harness, and marked with pencil strokes 
indicating the number of threads in 
each square that ought to be put 
through the harness. These drafts are 
extremely difficult to understand and 
many of them have bean handed down 
for generations. A coverlid requires 
four sets of harness and as many as 
1,200 threads are threaded through the 
eyes in the harness and are then 
threaded in two’s through 600 slits in 
the slay of reed. Each loom possesses 
four treadles, one for each harness, and 
two to four shuttles are necessary to do 
the weaving. 
