Civil War Era Quilt Family Heirloom

Exciting news........ or at least for me it is exciting.

As I was getting ready for the Sons of Confederate Reunion last week I wanted a table covering that was indicative of the Civil War era. I dug through my old family quilts to see if there was anything that would work. I saw this red, white and blue that satisfied my needs.

It was from my fathers family, on which the "A Twist of Tobacco" series is based. All of the years I have assumed my grandmother made the quilt. She married in 1913 and died in 1959.

 

It looked really nice and distinguished my display from others.

As I sat there for 4 days I became fascinated by the blue print. Now, I have bought and sold vintage and antique fabrics for more than 15 years but I just couldn't place any of these prints.

I took these photos while I was sitting there and posted them to one of my vintage and antique chat boards and can you imagine my surprise when they told me this is a 1860-1880 Victorian indigo cotton.

The response was based on the tiny size of the print. Apparently after 1880 the prints got larger.

So, even though I can't definitively prove who made the quilt and when, I can safely assume it was crafted from craps of clothing that were made during the Civil War-Reconstruction era.

I'm now calling it Marthey's quilt and it will be featured in Heaven's Promise-A Final Twist, the third book in A Twist of Tobacco Series due to be released in November 2016.