I bought this antique crazy quilt yesterday at the flea market:
I guess I felt I needed a real challenge! This quilt is in desperate need of love and repair. I also felt I wanted to practice a bit before I started on my commissioned quilt. And this one will give me plenty of practice!
It's dated 1888 in 3 different places:
There are 2 of these Cigar Wrappers on here, both the same and then there's this:
I can't for the life of me remember what these are called! Can someone help me out here? It says, "Auxiliary New York Stock Exchange. Cleveland & Thurman Club 1888"
It's rather clever how the stitcher used it as the handle for the fan.
The name of the stitcher is embroidered on here. Her name was Evelyn.
If you look closely at the above photo, you can see a shaded hot pink patch. That is a repair. And there's another repair on here that mom and I found yesterday. That one isn't as obvious.
And oh my gosh, looking at it now, there's another one of those things on here (the one I don't know what it's called). This one is in white and most of the gold printing is worn off but it's still readable. It says, "Wholesale Dry Goods. Cleveland And Thurman Club. 1888.
Wow! So it's dated 1888 in 4 places! Cool!
Ok, so my intention for this quilt is simply to replace the rotted and damaged patches and replace the damaged stitching.
Mom determined that the backing and binding is newer. The quilt was probably stitched and then sat around for awhile before it was "finished".
Again, I will make the repairs through everything that's here and then I will give it a new backing and new binding. I'll add a quilt label stating that it was repaired by me in the year (whenever I get it done).
There's alot of butterflies on here and quite a variety of stitches. Honestly, it's not a beautiful or perfect crazy quilt by any means. It just called to me so I bought it and I'll fix it and when we build our Queen Anne Victorian style dream home, I'll hang on the wall.
Can anyone out there give me some insight into the Cleveland & Thurman Club? There are 3 other silk patches on here that say, "Read The New York Weekly". I think it's safe to assume that this was made in New York.
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5 comments:
What a find! It looks beautiful in the pix. What size is it overall?
Are you trying to come up with the term commemorative ribbon or souvenir ribbon? I understand it was common practice to make and give away silk ribbons to promote businesses, events, political parties and the like. The La Conner Quilt Museum has a quilt in its' possession that features several of those kinds of ribbons.
Have fun playing with it! (You're a braver woman than I... but we already knew that!)
I couldn't think of the name either, but believe Sue is correct. They were used, I think, much like the souvenir buttons of today. Great find you made!!
Great finds! Looking forward to seeing progress pictures of your repairs.
I noticed that the antique crazy quilts don't have a lot of buttons, beads and other embellisments. Are they fairly recent additions to crazy quilts, or are these two quilts exceptions to the rule?
Wow! Pam.
what a great find...my dream is to own an old CQ quilt like this one day..
They are very rare here , and not as likly to be found at flea markets...
What a great quilt it seems from the pics! It's well documented, at the very least. I think it might be a political ribbon. 1888 was when he was nominated for president, but lost that one to Harrison. Thurman was his running mate on the Democratic ticket.
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