Part 12 (1/2)
Similar verses, and portions of hymns, are often found on these samplers. A favorite rhyme was:--
”When I was young and in my Prime, You see how well I spent my Time.
And by my sampler you may see What care my Parents took of me.”
A very spirited verse is:--
”You'll mend your life to-morrow still you cry.
In what far Country does To-morrow lie?
It stays so long, is fetch'd so far, I fear 'Twill prove both very old, and very dear.”
Strange trees and fruits and birds and beasts, wonderful vines and flowers, were embroidered on these domestic tapestries.
In the hands of a skilful worker, the sampler might become a thing of beauty and historical interest; and the st.i.tches learned and practised on it might be used on more ambitious pieces of work, which often took the shape of the family coat of arms. Such was the work of Mary Salter (Mrs. Henry Quincy), who was born in 1726, and died in 1755. It is the arms of Salter and Bryan party per pale upon a s.h.i.+eld. Rich in embossed work in gold and silver thread, it is a beautiful testimonial to the deft and proficient hand of the young needlewoman who embroidered it.
Sometimes pretentious pictures representing events in public or family history, were embroidered in crewels on sampler linen. The largest and funniest one I have ever seen was the boarding-school climax of glory of Miss Hannah Otis, sister of the patriot James Otis. It is a view of the Hanc.o.c.k House, Boston Common, and vicinity, as they appeared from 1755 to 1760. Across its expanse Governor Hanc.o.c.k rides triumphantly; and the fair maid looking over the garden wall at the Charles River is Dorothy Quincy, afterwards Madam Hanc.o.c.k. This triumph of school-girl affection and needle-craft, wholly devoid of perspective or proportion, made a great sensation in Boston, in its day.
Another large piece of similar work is here represented. The original is in the library of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, Ma.s.sachusetts. It is a view of the Old South Church, Boston; and with its hooped dames and coach and footman, has a certain value as indicating the costume of the times. It is dated 1756.
Familiar to the descendants of old New England families, are the embroidered mourning pieces. These are seldom more than a century old.
On them weeping willows and urns, tombs and mourning figures, names of departed friends with dates of their deaths, and epitaphs were worked with vast skill, and were so much admired and were such a delightful home decoration, that it is no unusual thing to find these elaborate memento moris with empty s.p.a.ces for names and dates, waiting for some one to die, and still unfilled, unfinished, blankly commemorative of no one, while the industrious embroiderer has long since gone to the tomb she so deftly and eagerly pictured, and her name, too, is forgotten.
Tambour work was a favorite form of embroidery. In 1788 Madam Hesselius wrote thus in jest of her daughter, a Philadelphia miss:--
”To tambour on c.r.a.pe she has a great pa.s.sion, Because here of late it has been much the fas.h.i.+on.
The shades are dis-sorted, the spangles are scattered And for want of due care the c.r.a.pe has got tattered.”
Tambouring with various st.i.tches on different kinds of net made pretty laces; and these were apparently the laces usually worked and worn. In the form of rich veils and collars scores of intricate and beautiful st.i.tches were used, and exquisite articles of wear were manufactured.
A strip of net footing pinned and sewn to paper, with reels of fine linen thread and threaded needle attached, is shown in the accompanying ill.u.s.tration just as it was left by the deft and industrious hands that have been folded for a century in the dust. The pattern and st.i.tches in this design are simple; the design was first p.r.i.c.ked in outline with a pin, then worked in. Other st.i.tches and patterns, none of them the most elaborate and difficult, are shown in the infant's cap and collars, and the strips of lace and ”modesty-piece.”
In the seventeenth century lace-making with bobbins was taught; it is referred to in Judge Sewall's diary; and a friend has shown me the cus.h.i.+on and bobbins used by her far-away grandmother who learned the various st.i.tches in London at a guinea a st.i.tch.
The feminine love of color, the longing for decoration, as well as pride in skill of needle-craft, found riotous expansion in quilt-piecing. A thrifty economy, too, a desire to use up all the fragments and bits of stuffs which were necessarily cut out in the shaping, chiefly of women's and children's garments, helped to make the patchwork a satisfaction.
The amount of labor, of careful fitting, neat piecing, and elaborate quilting, the thousands of st.i.tches that went into one of these patchwork quilts, are to-day almost painful to regard. Women revelled in intricate and difficult patchwork; they eagerly exchanged patterns with one another; they talked over the designs, and admired pretty bits of calico, and pondered what combinations to make, with far more zest than women ever discuss art or examine high art specimens together to-day.
There was one satisfactory condition in the work, and that was the quality of the cottons and linens of which the patchwork was made. They were none of the slimsy, composition-filled, aniline-dyed calicoes of to-day. A piece of ”chaney,” ”patch,” or ”copper-plate” a hundred years old will be as fresh to-day as when woven. Real India chintzes and palampours are found in these quilts, beautiful and artistic stuffs, and the firm, unyielding, high-priced, ”real” French calicoes.
A sense of the idealization of quilt-piecing is given also by the quaint descriptive names applied to the various patterns. Of those the ”Rising-sun,” ”Log Cabin,” and ”Job's Trouble” are perhaps the most familiar. ”Job's Trouble” was simply honeycomb or hexagonal blocks. ”To set a Job's Trouble,” was to cut out an exact hexagon for a pattern (preferably from tin, otherwise from firm cardboard); to cut out from this many hexagons in stiff brown paper or letter paper. These were covered with the bits of calico with the edges turned under; the sides were sewed carefully together over and over, till a firm expanse permitted the removal of the papers.
The name of the pattern seldom gave an expression of its character.
”Dove in the Window,” ”Rob Peter to Pay Paul,” ”Blue Brigade,”
”Fan-mill,” ”Crow's Foot,” ”Chinese Puzzle,” ”Fly-wheel,” ”Love-knot,”
”Sugar-bowl,” are simply whims of fancy. Floral names, such as ”Dutch Tulip,” ”Sunflower,” ”Rose of Sharon,” ”Bluebells,” ”World's Rose,”
might suggest a love of flowers. Sometimes designs are appliqued on with some regard for coloring. I once saw a quilt that was a miracle of tedious work. The squares of white cotton each held a slender stem with two leaves of green or light brown calico, surmounted by a four-petalled flower of high-colored calico,--pink, red, blue, etc. This design was all carefully hemmed down. The effect was surprisingly Oriental.
When the patchwork was completed, it was laid flatly on the lining (often another expanse of patchwork), with layers of wool or cotton wadding between, and the edges were basted all around. Four bars of wood, about ten feet long, ”the quiltin'-frame,” were placed at the four edges, the quilt was sewed to them with stout thread, the bars crossed and tied firmly at corners, and the whole raised on chairs or tables to a convenient height. Thus around the outstretched quilt a dozen quilters could sit running the whole together with fanciful set designs of st.i.tching. When about a foot on either side was wholly quilted, it was rolled upon its bar, and the work went on; thus the visible quilt diminished, like Balzac's Peau de Chagrin, in a united and truly sociable work that required no special attention, in which all were facing together and all drawing closer together as the afternoon pa.s.sed in intimate gossip. Sometimes several quilts were set up. I know of a ten days' quilting-bee in Narragansett in 1752.