Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Stars in a Time Warp 39: Claret Red

Reproduction star by Becky Brown


Reproduction star by Bettina Havig in a claret red ground print
with a horsey conversation shirting.


Collection: Jan at WhataLoadofScrap
Vintage stars. 
Claret reds with white shirtings, an early 20th century classic.

Repro block by Evelyne
Claret red is a shade of wine red. We might call it burgundy.

Vintage star from about 1900. Claret reds also were paired with
indigos--- navies and cadet blues.

The claret prints were usually monochromes, white figures on red ground (as were the
blues and blacks.) The color seems to have come from a new synthetic dye.  I'd guess the spare look was influenced by economics: One color on white was cheaper to print, but the minimalism might have been a new, fresh look after late-Victorian fashions.

Louise's star quilt from the same time.
The wine-colored red was part of a new color
scheme in the 1890s.

Louise found this terrific example of a turnof-the-20th-century quilt at a thrift shop.

Style tip from about 1905: Red goes with red.

Quilt date-inscribed 1897
Turkey red star blocks in wine red sashing.

Quilts in this color palette seem so "countrified" to us, but in 1900
this was the pinnacle of cotton quilt fashion.

Quilt date-inscribed 1892
If you want to capture that look you need
to have a stash of reds shading towards what
we called cranberry in the 1970s.

Reproductions

Repro block by Bettina Havig

During the 1990s I copied a charm quilt in the 1890s  palette.
I hand pieced those squares over several years.
The hardest part was finding the right shades. Navy
prints were rare for several years.
Cranberry reds got hard to find.

But this is a good year for wine-reds.

Barb Eikmeier has a few
in her Vintage Shirtings and Dress Prints

A couple of Barb's claret reds in Becky's reproduction block.

The smaller, darker dot is Moda Essential Dots


Jan Patek's new Hawthorne Ridge features a dark wine colorway.


Pam Buda has a few monochromes in Treenware and Berries


And so does Judie Rothermel in Scarlet Evening

What to Do With Your Stack of Stars?
Frame Them


Becky's been making a frame for each as she goes.

She put it together during Hurricane Joaquin this week
alternating dark and light frames.

The plan
More pictures of the finished top later.

Another idea: frame it twice with dark and light frames.
This set was on Etsy once.

I saw this set for Blackbird Designs new fabric line Country Orchard when I was at Prairie Point Quilts in Shawnee, Kansas, a few weeks ago. The pattern is Terry Atkinson's Lucky Stars


One More Thing About Claret


Claret is an old name for a wine red color or maroon, but this particular shade of cotton seems to have arrived about 1890.
An 1898 dye manual calls Claret red prints:
"An important style in calico-printing and much in demand..."
and gives a new formula for a brighter though not so colorfast red.

Quilt top date-inscribed 1904

Most of these claret reds seem quite colorfast a century later, however.

Block from a set date-inscribed 1903


6 comments:

Wendy Caton Reed said...

I knew it was coming. My least favorite color. I will muddle through. Thanks!

Lori said...

I'm a fan of claret!!

Maureen said...

This claret red is a new favorite color for me.
I'm learning a lot from these posts. Thanks so much!

mamifleur said...

Barbara thank you for showing my star if you knew how assiduously we follow my mom and me your blog and look forward to Wednesday!
We choose the fabrics, I draw, I cut and Mama sews the stars! They are small 12cms (4 3/4 inches)
In the month of April, a friend of my Patchwork club has found very interesting learning tissues and she started with me. It belongs to another patch club and she contacted her friends envy. In the city of La Rochelle ten French are sewing "Stars in a Time Warp".
Another big thank you for your generosity. Friendship

Debra said...

Love the richness of this color. Would love to do an entire quilt in red, or claret, and white. Awesome.

Karen Andreola said...

I like claret very much but still like good-old regular red, too, and have used them together in the same little scrappy quilt. Next, I'd like to use the claret along with pink. The star pattern is one of my favorites. Thank you for showing us examples of both the star and the color claret.