My 1880s Silk Quilt

Over the past 40 years, I collected vintage quilts. Most of these were found at antique markets in Maryland and Pennsylvania. I haven’t added to the collection since moving to Florida.

A few months ago, I took one quilt to the Davenport Quilt show for appraisal. I opted for the quickie appraisal, not wishing to spend the $40 for the written one that would have included an estimate of value for the quilt.

The quilt appraisor with my 1880s or 1890s silk quilt.

Here’s what I learned about it. The pattern is a star block. It appears to have been made from a grey silk dress as there are tucks in some of the pieces. Due to the iron content used in dyes for silk, those pieces are likely to suffer some disintegration over the years. A few small pieces show this with the silk shredding. The appraiser said there is nothing that can be done to prevent this since the harm was done at the time the fabric was made.

The red parts are not silk, but linen. The backing is a paisley that looks to be of 1880s vintage.

The batting is very thin and it is probable that this was never intended for use on a bed for warmth. More likely it was for show or for a lap robe.

Rather than being quilted, it is a tied quilt with red and green ribbons. The green ones have faded to a yellow over the last 130 years, but in a few places the original color could be detected. With the red and green ribbons plus the poinsettia look of the stars, this might be a Christmas quilt.

 

 

My Tindeco Tin Collection

Tindeco tin with butterfly

We’re having fun reorganizing our garage and improving the storage. This motivated me to pull out two big storage bins filled with vintage Tindeco tins. Since I already have dozens of them on display inside the house, there just isn’t room for these. As I unwrapped each one from it’s bubble wrap, it reminded me of fun excursions to the weekly flea market in Edmundson, Maryland and occasional trips up to Shupp’s Grove, an antique’s flea market in Pennsylvania.

Deciding that the tins should no longer languish in storage, I created a webpage on Squidoo about Tindeco.  I took photos of all the tins in one bin, resized all the photos and posted them on the website. Maybe today, I’ll get the second batch of tins photographed. My hopes are that other Tindeco collectors will discover them and I can sell them. Maybe I’ll even inspire new collectors to start collecting Tindeco. They really are a premium tin and the 1920s when they were created was the heyday of tin container art. Some of the tins feature Harrison Fisher artwork. Also very popular are the Peter Rabbit tins that Tindeco made.