Ami's SOA Civil War Quilts: Era, Commemorative, Inspired

Our historical society has just held the quilt show that it hosts every other year; some of the quilts are from our own collection while others are borrowed from the community. This year's show included one of my favorites: "the Fan Quilt".

In 1898 the GAR was raising funds and the ladies associated with the GAR made a quilt with a repeating pattern of fans. Each fan had segments. For some fee, a person could "buy" one of these segments and his/her name was entered into that segment. Most of "my" soldiers (the ones who survived and stayed in town) bought segments as did veterans from other areas who settled in town. We've taken many photos of the sections of the quilt that include the name of somebody's ancestor (the farthest being California).

The quilt is always displayed along with a list of all the subscribers.
 
My pleasure, Lnwlf. I like your description, "functional art." The hours, weeks, months required for hand piecing and hand quilting are what makes the heart and soul of a quilt. Treasures, to be sure.
My grandmother made all of us Dresden Plate quilts out of the usable portions of old cotton house dresses. She would discard the worn and stained parts, keep the good parts and supplement with broadcloth The "plates" were on a white background, and alternated with pink or blue squares (depending on which grandchild was getting the quilt) . The plain squares had a stitched design similar to a fleur de lis in them. I no longer have mine as a certain idiot I had been married to took it and used it as a drop cloth under a car he was changing the oil on! I was devastated, it was one of the few things I had left that my grandmother made for me.
DresdenPlateBlock.jpg
 
My grandmother made all of us Dresden Plate quilts out of the usable portions of old cotton house dresses. She would discard the worn and stained parts, keep the good parts and supplement with broadcloth The "plates" were on a white background, and alternated with pink or blue squares (depending on which grandchild was getting the quilt) . The plain squares had a stitched design similar to a fleur de lis in them. I no longer have mine as a certain idiot I had been married to took it and used it as a drop cloth under a car he was changing the oil on! I was devastated, it was one of the few things I had left that my grandmother made for me.
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That is just a beautiful design and palette. I would love to see the entire quilt!
 
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