Kindness, squared: Crazy quilt in exhibit has an intriguing past

NORFOLK

Everything about this quilt is crazy.

The silk and velvet patches have random shapes. Colors are a flamboyant jumble, with burgundy taking a slight lead. Stitches change every few inches, some resembling bird tracks. Embroidery, inked artwork, printed fabric, plaids, stripes, checks, dots, florals - all lie side by side bordered elegantly by rope trim.

"I got this about 10 years ago when my aunt died," said Sue Welch, her quilt spread gently across her lap. It will be shown, for only two days, in a special quilt show next weekend at The Hunter House Victorian Museum in Norfolk. She is eager to share its story.

Welch's aunt, uncle and grandparents had lived in Connecticut in a duplex that had a shared attic.

"My cousin went up into the attic and found this quilt along with three other ones. They knew that I quilted and so they sent them to me. This is definitely the winner," she said.

And what a prize it is.

Welch believes she has a genuine Victorian crazy quilt, a sample of the exuberant quilting women did around the turn of the 20th century. Evidence is sewn right into Welch's treasure.

To begin with, "1885" is stitched right on a silk square. The Victorian era in England corresponds with the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1901.

Next, in the United States the Victorian age includes the years of the Civil War, fought from 1861 to 1865.

And that's the second tantalizing clue that Welch's quilt holds. One of the silk patches, orange with red print, is a portion of a commemorative ribbon that marks the 18th annual reunion of the 49th Massachusetts Regiment of the town of North Adams. It is dated "Sept. 11, '84."

Welch's family is from that area of Massachusetts, tracing family back to North Adams and Pittsfield. Her mother and aunt were Booths. Their mother, she said, was a Rider from North Adams. Welch has looked into the Civil War archive to find the history of the volunteer infantry regiment. She learned that the men from Berkshire County enlisted in August 1862 and rendezvoused at Camp Briggs in Pittsfield.

They traveled to Baton Rouge, La., where soldiers died from malaria and other fevers, and more were later killed in the siege of Port Hudson. By the time they came home the following August, 114 of the regiment's original 750 members had died.

Welch is eager could link the name of one of her forebearers to the group and make the history sewn into her quilt personal.

So far, no luck.

Though lavishly embroidered with daisies and roses, bachelor's buttons and thistles, cherries, pears, forget-me-nots, a horseshoe, crane, deer, oriental vase, lily of the valley and butterfly, even one small silk square printed with the image of a sailor clinging to a mast and another, possibly hand-inked, with a sketch of a Renaissance-era courtier, the quilt is not signed.

"Of course, back then, they did a lot of bees, so it could have been made by a number of women," Welch said.

Since it was found in an attic shared by two families, it's not clear if the quilt belonged to Welch's grandmother or aunt. And Welch's mother, still alive at the time of the discovery, knew nothing about it either.

The quilt is backed in silk, in spots shredded now, or "shattered." The wool batting inside shows here and there, and Welch marvels at the way the ties that hold the backing and batting in place are sewn so cunningly that the stitches are invisible from the front.

Some of the fabric patches, the silks especially, are tissue thin, as if salvaged from evening gowns. Others are heavier weight, like drapery fabric, men's ties or upholstery silks.

"This is probably the oldest quilt in the show," she said, stroking its soft. multi-textured surface. "If you just keep looking at it, you keep seeing new things."

Krys Stefansky, (757) 446-2043, krys.stefansky@pilotonline.com