Woven rugs - Marie Fuller

 I thought you might enjoy these old photos of my maternal Grandmother, Marie Fuller. She made woven rugs on a large loom, using recycled fabric and clothes. This photo was probably taken on the farm near Enid, Oklahoma. This farm belonged to Marie and the family moved back to the farm in 1933 after it was no longer possible to pay the mortgage on the Dearborn, Michigan, house. The Depression had hit hard by this time, and the local banks had failed.

The loom was a 12 heddle loom.....you can see the balls of cloth near Marie's feet.

Marie with completed rugs. My sister Lynette has hired a geneological firm to help write a history of the Fuller family. This research has thrown up some intetesting discoveries.....and also disproved some family stories! Also, I now find that I could join the DAR if I wished to.... I am looking forward to seeing the finished book.

I have also received some painted hankies that Marie made in the late 1940s. Marie ran classes to teach others how to paint and stencil decorative designs with fabric paints and also add decorative edgings with the sewing machine. I will try to find out more about these and include them in a future post.

And here are some of Marie's woven rugs that I keep....over the back of a sofa, and not used on the floor, of course!

Another Hawick Quilt

I saw this on that well- known auction site, along with a second quilt in yellow sateen. Both had the Hawick motifs on them.......I did not win the yellow quilt (which went for £130, still a reasonable price) but did win this blue and pink quilt for a much lower amount. The blue side ( top side, quilted from this side in blue thread) has some fade marks where it was folded and left in the sunlight, but otherwise a nice quilt with little wear to be seen.

There is a laundry mark which states H1983. It may be a stock number or a laundry mark.

These two quilts came from a dealer in Edinburgh....so not too far from their place of making in the Scottish borders at Hawick.

Here you can see the typical patterns for Hawick quilts...scale filling, the spikey heart motif and large daisies. The large thistle pattern can be seen on both edges, too. The yin yan pattern is also to be seen along the outer edges.

Trying to see whether square or rectangle photo from my new phone is better....my old system of uploading photos from camera to laptop to blog does not seem to work very well now, so I am now trying phone to ipad to blog...still trying to iron out the wrinkles and see what works! I'm hoping it will be much easier to do, and therefor, less excuse to procrastinate posting...

 

Here you can see the thistles and the outer border motif...

The pink reverse is in better shape. This quilt has "the edge" whereby the top and bottom were seamed together before putting on the frame. One edge does look a bit different, but most people would not notice. 

These quilts were made in Hawick in the 1920s and 30s by church groups as fund raisers. There is an article in Quilt Studies which tells the complete story, and has some fascinating details...

This quilt was also delivered by a courier.....I remembered that the previous Hawick quilt was misdelivered by Hermes, luckily I found it at a neighbors house after a few days. With this quilt, the courier was Yodel not Hermes, and I came home to find the parcel sitting by the front door.....now Suffolk is a safe place, but I was not very pleased. The Royal Mail is more expensive, but I like the security of picking a parcel up at the sorting office or the local post office, not just abandoned on the doorstep.