Question about a vintage quilt
 

My friend has a vintage quilt that her great grandmother sewed and in one corner of the quilt - it feels like there is a penny sewn inside the quilt. Has anyone ever heard of this? I know I have accidently left pins but never money. I just wonder if it was an accident or if there is a reason to sew a penny into a quilt.

How sweet no matter how valuable the coin may be!

i like the idea of that. i googled many forms of putting a coin in a quilt and came up completely empty. my only thought about that, though, is that the coin may wear through the fabric over time.

I like Tartans idea about why the penny is in the quilt.

Is she going to open the quilt to see what it is?

My grandmother believed that you put a penny in your shoe on your wedding day for luck. Even had a special little blue pouch for it. She gave that to me when I married. Perhaps it WAS the wedding penny. When my cousin's daughter was married a few years ago, I lent her the penny/pouch as her 'something borrowed'. She and I were our grandmother's favorites. I did make sure I got it back though!

I also have a very old quilt which has an interesting quirk about it. The written provenance that came to us with our family quilt dated ca.1790 or earlier (by the Textile Museum at Colonial Williamsburg) includes a statement that the fabric (which turned out to be linen) "was grown, spun, and woven on the plantation through a finger ring." NO ONE in the museum or any antique appraiser has been able to tell me the significance of this.

Yet, as I child I distinctly remember regularly placing a ring over a birthday candle on cakes before the candles were blown out, to make a wish. Mother says she doesn't think we did this at all. I can only assume the idea came form my father's side of the family, from which the quilt also came. And that makes me wonder if this was a regional Virginia idea, maybe Irish or English in origin.

Who knows where these wonderful old traditions originate, as they are so often lost over the years. Sadly.

Jan in VA

Jan--is the linen in your quilt very fine? I remember (alas so vaguely) reading about young women weaving their (wedding?) kerchief from threads so fine the finished product could be pulled through a finger ring--perhaps the wedding ring. I think maybe 17-18th cent. England. This may or may not be relevant...
--Nanibi

No Nanibi,
This linen isn't that fine, it looks like linen does at Joannes, sort of, though with slightly more nubby-ness. The thread it was quilted with is also linen, we believe, and it looks about like our 30wt. Cotton quilting thread.

I've heard of what you are talking about, too, although I thought is was knitted shawls made of the finest yarns, so wispy that they could be pulled through a ring after they were knitted into the shawl. I've actually seen some like it today , and would maybe learn to knit if I could afford to do stuff like that!!

In reference to my quilt, when I first read the provenance, I immediately got the impression that the spinning and weaving through a finger ring was a tradition for fabric being especially made for, maybe, trousseau items.....like a wedding quilt. Of course, that could have been my imagination rather than fact.

Linen is the background fabric and the backing fabric of this 1780 quilt, and it is appliqued in the middle with Broderie Perse Flowers. Then around that medallion there are several pieced borders of "chintz" fabrics imported to the Colonies from England. That was a very expensive purchase in the 1700s, which was indicated in the provenance letter which claimed they were purchased "for $12 a yard in those days".

Jan in VA