A Small Medallion Quilt

Here I sit waiting for my house to sell, and in the meantime, I thought I would go to Old Town Hilo and rummage through my favorite antique store again. While I was there what should I find but this wonderful little textile. Is it a medallion quilt? I believe it is, but it doesn't have batting of any kind and measures only about 36" x 40", so maybe it was made for someones doll or maybe it was used as a wall hanging or tablecloth?! I will do the best I can to describe it in detail and hopefully this will help anyone else who is trying to identify or date their piece.

After searching the internet I found this article on Medallion Quilts and so include this link, as I think the article was very helpful.   http://www.womenfolk.com/quilting_history/medallion.htm

 This piece is entirely sewn by hand with the most beautiful little stitches. The thread that was used to sew it with was very fine silk or rayon. The front of the quilt is done in solids in cotton, and the back is loose plain weave cotton sacking like old flour sack material.

UPDATE: After doing online research with my sister, we have come to the conclusion that this is very Nordic in its design. The piece may actually have been made in Norway. I give you this link to a blog I found extremely helpful in our research. Check it out. It has some of the loveliest costumes I have every seen.   http://folkcostume.blogspot.com/2016/03/

Here is the little medallion quilt. As you can see this is a lovely intricate piece. The more I inspected it the more tiny details I found. Even tho I could not readily determine its age, I found it so beautiful I decided to purchase it. Unfortunately the owner of the store knew nothing at all about it, so I know none of its history to share.

 Here is the back and as I said before it looks and feels like plain weave cotton sacking. Much like that used in the feed sacks of the 1930's.

The center medallion is cross-stitched, 11 stitches to the inch, with either silk or rayon thread. It is an overall eight star pattern but has such fine details it reminds me of a Persian rug.

      Here is a bit of a closer view of the outer detail.

The only quilting on the piece follows the lines of the thin strips, and are three & four rows of running stitches, 6 to the inch. The thread is so fine it is like a hair and very hard to see.

 

Here is a closer look at one of the cross-stitched center medallions. Each medallion is slightly different in its color combination. The colors in the medallions, (except for the pink), are echoed in rest of the piece. All four medallions are stitched on a single piece of two over two under counted cross stitch fabric. This type of cross-stitch fabric was invented in Germany in 1890. It soon spread to other parts of the world and is pretty much the same as the cross-stitch fabric we use today. 

It might help if I could do a burn test to find out if the thread used is rayon, but that is simply not possible. Rayon thread has also been around since the 1800's but came into vogue for embroidery floss around 1929. Given the article I referenced above says medallion quilts came back into vogue in the early 20th century, I am leaning towards the quilt dating to the early 1930's.

 The pale turquoise blue and white strip may look like one piece of striped fabric, but it is actually three individual strips, together they are 1/2" wide. The  black strip is 1 3/4" wide and has little appliqued squares set on point. The large squares are just under an inch, and the tiny squares appliqued to them are just 1/4", much like a postage stamp quilt. The white and grey are once again two tiny strips of cloth, as are the yellow and grey in the next picture.

 The yellow, green, and red triangle's measure 1 1/4" x 1 3/4" , and are sewn together with tiny seams, not appliqued. They are sewn together with 11 stitches to the inch. A very fine seam indeed.

The small strips are all mitered at the corners but the wide strips are butt joined. The outer wide dark blue band is 2 1/8" wide and mitered at three corners and butt joined at one. Here you can see where the strip wasn't quite long enough so was extended.

The construction method of this piece makes me believe the large strips were constructed in long single pieces, then cut and stitched to make the rectangle's. You can clearly see where they didn't come out exactly correct in some places.

The entire piece is made up of a light weight plain weave cotton sheeting, with the exception of the center medallion. Whoever made this textile certainly had skill as a sewer, and I am happy to add this piece to my collection.