ca. 1790 FAMILY QUILT pictures found!
 

I couldn't wait until the morning to share with you the pictures I found of my family's heirloom ca. 1790 quilt!!
I had written about this quilt before, how I had donated it to the textile museum in Colonial Williamsburg, about 14 years ago. Well, they did some research on it -- some of which I do not quite understand (the family lineage-who it was passed down to) -- and they microscoped the fibers, fabrics and designs, information which I did not have "for sure" before donating it. All very exciting to me and which I will follow up on to determine how they arrived at some of the details they state on their web page! You might enjoy taking a peak at the site yourself: http://emuseum.history.org/view/obje...9-ab506d9122dd

The colors in the quilt are pretty accurate in the photos. The flat full view was taken in the work/research room at Colonial Williamsburg under their florescent lighting. The closeups were taken in the climate-controlled storage room while standing on a work ladder, leaning over the huge flat drawer on which they are each stored. The other large view was taken by the museum. Note the one flower with intense rose and aqua color -- I found this amazing after over 200 years! The applique was all done in Broderie Perse, what we now call buttonhole stitch. The batting is quite thin and was probably carded right on the plantation in Richmond, VA.

One detail I found in my own research of this quilt while I worked in their work/research room was that, counting from the bottom of the quilt, there are 10 borders until the medallion in the center, 10 different quilting designs, and 10 different fabrics in this quilt.

Jan in VA

Wow what an honor to be a part of this wonderful quilt. Hopefully we will go to Willamsburg and can view this in peson. Love you story.

Simply amazing! What a fascinating treasure. Thx so much for sharing here. ;-)

What an exciting quilt!! thank you for sharing it and the website.

Jan, I love your story about your family heirloom quilt. That is exciting and I am glad that you pursued the path of complete documentation. We lived in Virginia (suburbs of D.C.) for fifteen years. We spent quite a bit of time in Williamsburg. My husband had a conference in Williamsburg one year and the whole family went and really enjoyed the back study. I was a textile major in graduate school and was very enthralled with the textile study that goes on there. It is so important to document, study and preserve our textile history because it is so much a part of the lives of our historical family.

Great story and an amazing quilt! So glad it was preserved.

Beautiful quilt.

Wow!! It is almost 300 years old!! Amazing how well it was preserved! Congratulations!

Wow, to have this treasure and to share it is wonderful. No wonder you are so good. You have quilting in your genes and a history to prove it. Wonderful and thanks for sharing.

very very interesting