Showing posts with label cretonne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cretonne. Show all posts

Saturday, 16 May 2009

Deconstructing a Very Damaged 19th Century French Quilt. Part 2







Here is the next installment of this slowly unfolding textile story. I haven't done any more to the quilt since the first post, as I am not quite sure how to procced, I had intended to remove the whole back panel to see the full extent of the damage and reveal the fabrics beneath the outer layer, but I may be a bit more 'archaeological' about it, if you know what I mean, and 'dig a trench' or two across particular areas and see what I find! I would appreciate your thoughts on the subject before I unpick any more.

Here are close-ups of some of the very damaged parts to see the beautiful fabric revealed so far below the green and cream side! Please click on each piece to enlarge, the detail is exquisite! It looks like an first layer of fine, small print indienne cotton in a caramelly-pink, with roses, and some sort of geomtric strap-work/cartouche motif. Beneath that is another indienne, it must be earlier, in more of a raspberry reddish-pink with the tiniest rose print. Finally, what looks like a patch, rather than a layer of a striped fabric. This was seen on the other side of the quilt, through some damage to the wool batting, so was beneath the deep red/faded clack floral twill side, unlike the two cottons. This looks hand woven wool to me at this stage, perhaps a piece of tapestry. What do you think?
I won't try to date the fabric yet, I need to look through some of my books to do some research, as I am certainly no expert, just a very enthusiastic amateur, but have lots of books, the internet and the odd bout of Sherlock Holmsian doggedness when presented with a puzzle like this! Please let me know if you have any ideas, lets pool our resources here girls!


Tuesday, 12 May 2009

Deconstructing a Very Damaged 19th Century French Quilt. Part 1








A few weeks ago, I was invited to visit a lock-up belonging to some dealers I know, as they had just returned from a buying trip to France. There was a pile of not very exciting textiles spread out for me to view, but what caught my eye was this very damged quilt that had been tossed aside, as if to be thrown away. I picked it up, and the dealer commented it was a such a shame it was ruined. I had a close look, and could see some different fabric peeping through the many little holes peppering the fabric, so I bought it for research, as it look quite intriguing.

In poorer days, people didn't simply buy or make another quilt when the old one began to wear out, that wasn't an option for a lot of families. The sensible thing was to re-cover the old, threadbare quilt with a new outer layer. This was not only cheaper, but must have been a less time time consuming job in the times when a woman's day was filled with chores from dawn till dusk.

This quilt is really damaged, too far gone to restore, so I will be carefully deconstructing it, and posting photos as the task progresses to find out what kind of fabrics have been used, hopefully to get a bit of an idea of the age and history of the piece.
Any thoughts about the quilt and the dates of the fabric used would be very welcome!