Textiles and the Triplett Sisters

I can’t believe it is almost a New Year! I haven’t even finished telling/showing you more of the Houston Quilt Festival. Don’t worry, we’ll get back to that in the next blog. However, I couldn’t wait to tell you about what is coming up for the Triplett Sisters in the New Year 2022. First, there is the new EPP quilt along with Diamante and More Sampler. The directions provide a suggested workflow to help you accomplish the quilt top in 1 year. It is available as a kit or a pattern, so you can choose your own fabrics. (Here’s the link.) I’ll be making another one right along with you, while giving history tidbits and pointers. Since I’ve already made the one with the cream background, I’m choosing a dark background (green or black) this time...

In our continuing tour of the exhibitions at the Houston Quilt Festival, we were surprised to see very few antique quilts. We missed seeing older quilts in all their ancient glory. Fortunately, there was one exhibition entirely of antique quilts called “Pieces of the Past.” One of the quilts was by Anna Williams, which doesn’t seem like a part of the past, since Kay knew her and spent time with her at a friend’s house. (Does that mean you are getting old when you know someone that made a quilt in an antique quilt exhibit???) Anna’s improvisational style was natural to her, but her style was one that many art quilters strive to find for themselves. Another quilt had one of my favorite pillar print birds in it. I’ve written about this fabric before (if you’d...

As you may recall, this year my sister and I had the Huguenot Friendship Quilt exhibit at the Houston Quilt Festival. We realized that not everyone was able to attend the festival this year, so we thought we’d take you to the festival through our blog. Since the big prize-winning quilts have been readily available online, I thought I would focus on other parts of the festival starting with miniature quilts. I’ve only written one other blog on miniature quilts, perhaps because not many miniature quilts are antique. It seems to be a more recent phenomenon. The Smithsonian National Museum of American History only has one quilt in the collection labeled “Miniature” and it was likely a Doll Quilt. True miniature quilts are patterns/designs found in large quilts but recreated in a smaller scale. Ideally, in...

This is our final blog on the American Military Textiles, and it focuses on the pictorial style. To date three pictorial American Military textiles have been uncovered. The earliest is a table cover from Vevay, Indiana and depicts events from the founding of Vevay by Swiss immigrants. Research on this table cover is what inspired research into this group of textiles. Initially added to the Poos Collection in 2015, we connected with Annette Gero for guidance on this pictorial. Annette immediately identified the two panels associated with the story of Wilhelm Tell. From there, The Triplett Sisters continued the hunt to find an early Swiss Colony in America which matched the 41 different scenes detailed in the table cover. For detailed information on this textile please see our book “Hidden Treasures” at this link. The Civil...

Continuing our exploration of Geometric military textiles, we’ll start with the Wool In-laid Patchwork Quilt Top composed of wool broadcloth, printed wools, cotton corduroy, silk plush, and other wools used in men’s clothing, with the red and blue fabrics are thought to be from military uniforms. Barnet Kobler, who served in the Ninth Pennsylvania Regiment, stated in his application for pension that he made uniforms for the troops during the American Revolution and some fabrics could be from revolutionary uniforms. However, since most of these fabrics date from the 1790s, many of the military fabrics are more likely militia not from the Revolutionary War. Additionally, even though the quilt top is called an “inlaid patchwork,” also known as intarsia, on closer examination the quilt is constructed using a variety of techniques. Traditional piecing and applique are...