|
Swatchbook:
1870-1885
Here's a look
at some calicos from the years surrounding the nation's
Centennial. These were rescued from a very badly-pieced
quilt top that somebody had cut into; fortunately the
fabric was still in pristine,
unused condition. Two strips of Centennial-print
calico near the center of the quilt made it easy to
date! Although unused, many of the fabric strips had printing flaws; others had rough seams that were made before the fabric was printed, and I found several examples of different "colorways" of the same
design. And I counted almost 100 different
prints! This suggests that the maker may have had
access to scraps from one or more textile mills; it'd be interesting to trace these prints to a particular mill or town. This is my
favorite era! I think it's really neat that the
various shades of brown, rust and red are all produced
with the same dye from the madder plant; the fabric was
stamped with different mordants (fixatives) which caused
the dye to turn different colors. Click
on the picture to see fabrics actual size.
 Many
quilters mistakenly believe that "Turkey red" refers
to a particular color - or any deep red, for that
matter. (It's one of the most commonly misused words in
quilt auctions on ebay!) But Turkey red isn't just red,
or a particular red, or even a dye you could buy in a packet
at the general store. It's actually a dye process that
produces a rich and incredibly colorfast, cool (blueish) red. And while "Turkey" may suggest that's the place from
which western Europeans first acquired the technique, it was actually brought to Europe by Jewish and Syrian dyers from the Levant; "Turkey" was simply the catch-all phrase for what we now refer to as the "Middle East". Although textile printers used madder root for other colors (from vivid orange to
brownish-black), producing Turkey red with it was so
complicated that they didn't attempt it
themselves. Instead, they sent their fabric to Turkey
red specialists to be dyed. The Society of Dyers
and Colorists website
describes the process as one which
...involved
thoroughly cleansing the yarn or cloth by boiling with
alkali; steeping in rancid olive or castor oil, soda and cow
or sheep dung, mordanting with alum and sumac; dyeing in a
batch of madder, ox blood and chalk; finally, washing to
brighten the colour. In the early nineteenth century the
process could take three weeks or more.
The
use of oil often caused Turkey red fabric to be described by
vendors as "oil boiled". Quilters loved
it. Turkey red was a luscious color, it didn't fade, and
it didn't bleed; without it, the elaborate red-green
applique quilts of the 1840-75 period would have been an
impossibility. But it was expensive. Even after
synthetic reds were introduced around 1875, Turkey red
"oil boiled calico" sometimes cost ten times
more.
| On
the other hand, synthetic reds, often advertised
as "Turkey" red (such as that pictured at
right) had a nasty habit of fading to
beige or bleeding all over the place.
So until the
mid-1920s when a reliable colorfast synthetic red was finally
introduced, whever they could afford it, quilters bought
Turkey red. For more information on the history of this dye, see Robert Chenciner's superb Madder Red
and articles by W.H.
Cliffe and Anthony
Travis. |
Often
misrepresented as "Turkey" red and colorfast,
synthetic home dyes for cotton (such as this one from an
1895 Diamond Dye book) promptly faded to
beige.
|
How
do you know if your old quilt's red is real Turkey red?
If your quilt's at all worn, it's relatively easy.
Turkey red wears just like a pair of blue jeans: high
spots will weather to white. John
Sauls Antiques of Tyler, TX kindly provided some
excellent photos of a c.1850 album quilt loaded with Turkey
red - note in particular the closeup at lower right. Click
on the pictures to see typical wear patterns.
|
