Mosaic Rose Quilt
Beautiful Mosaic Rose Quilt, made in 1881, by Louise Henry McHaney (1821-1905).
When I was sent this photo by Lenn B. Jackson, I could not help but appreciate the 12,772, 5/8th inch pieces that her great, great grandmother sewed into this quilt. She found the pattern to make the quilt at the 1884 Cotton Exposition in New Orleans.
I had written an article for The Quilter magazine in 2002, that discussed a piece of (severed) Crazy Quilt with its silk commemorative ribbon that features the image of President Grover Cleveland. The article was the first that Ms. Jackson knew of my work, she claims.
Close-up view of the Mosaic Rose Quilt
The documentation sheet that she forwarded to me states that the colors of the quilt are brown, for the background, blue, green, pink, red, and yellow. The quilter assembled the quilt in squares, using 625,828 stitches (as counted by her husband), and 178,808 hand quilting stitches, worked diagonally. That Victorian time in which the quilt was made was one of more pieces and more stitches, the better.
Here is the quilt, draped over a dining room table.
The quilt took twelve months and twelve days to complete, and was displayed at Marshall Fields in Chicago, and at the St. Louis World’s Fair.
The brown fabrics are showing some deterioration. Many of the brown dyes of the day were mordanted with iron, and that is, no doubt, the problem. Unfortunately, there is no way to reverse the effect.
The overall size of the quilt is 76 1/4″ x 85 1/4″ – in other words, twin size, and it is 100% cotton with a solid brown cotton backing.
We thank Ms. Jackson for sending this information. We sure do love to see the photos that are frequently sent to us by our readers. This is the second mosaic quilt we have seen in a year. If anyone knows of any other ones, please let us know.
Patricia Cummings
April 17th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
omg, how completely lovely! And WHAT an amazing amount of work! Scrumptious picture-taking by Jim, as always!