Review of Polly Mello's Program

Polly Mello presented a program featuring wool quilts and white work of many kinds. Much of the work comes to us from New England where such humorous songs as "Frozen Charlotte" and "The Corpse Going to the Ball" helped to keep the population warm. Humor, however, was not enough in those long winters to protect from the cold. Knitting became a family affair with young children assigned so many inches a day to produce to keep the family in stockings and shawls. They created woolen overshot blankets and bed rugs, many dated before1830, and a Calamenco weave and Calendered wool that was boiled to increase the weight of the quilts. Most of these are made up of strips, the width of the loom, sewed together.

Competition existed between America and Europe for fine wool. The "cheap sheep" of the Americans, used for food, only produced rough wool. The first Merino sheep-only three-were sent from Europe in 1793, and, it is told, that they accidentally were eaten. Thus it was not until the 1800's that Americans received more Merino sheep to produce fine wool to spin.

The weavers used bright colors for the Jacquard prints created on looms like a piano roll for the first time in 1840.

1840s Jacquard Prints

Indigo blue was a favorite dye of the times coming from the Southern States and the Orient. To change the color of the wool, the weavers might use a copper pot in which to dye the wool. Weavers would travel around with their loom to communities and weave for the families who often provided their own wool.

Indigo Blue Dye

By 1867 wool Challis was created. Sometimes the blankets are cotton backed using roses and paisley prints. Detailed pictures of birds, and heroes, such as Teddy Roosevelt; names-Mama and Papa-and dates decorated their quilts.

Names, pictures and dates decorate the quilt

The Amish often used strips of dark colors enhanced with elaborate quilting, using designs of grapes and vines to embellish their quilts.

Crazy quilts were not the only creation from a variety of materials. Polly showed us a "college quilt" made up of a uniform from A&M of Texas, complete with sleeves and pockets.

Use of A&M University uniform as part of a college quilt

Polly has a wide collection of white work with Crewel, Candle Wick, sculptured wool, and crocheted lace.

White Woolen Blanket

The art of crochet came from Scotland in 1840, and with it the opportunity to develop intricate designs. Bobbin lace was made by Native Americans for tablecloths. The skilled lace maker could complete one square inch an hour. Victorians with their love of "things" filled their homes with linens decorated with insets of lace and crocheted edges.

Lace table cloth

The final and perhaps best story Polly told, and she is a wonderful story teller, takes us back to Europe in the Renaissance when Italy made the finest lace and attempted to keep it from France. One colorful method of moving the contraband was to use a greyhound with a layer of lace on its back covered with the skin of another greyhound to run across the border. However, the French king, Francis I arranged the marriage of his second son, Henry II, to Catherine de Medici, who not only erected the Tuileries, but brought the best lace to France.

Wool Brocade

Because it is so complete, I wonder where Polly keeps her collection. Our next request will be a field trip to Polly's home to see her rooms and rooms filled with antique quilts, blankets, clothing, dishes, baskets, and linens-and I am sure that I have left something out, it is so complete.

Show and Tell

"Mary Brown" completed by Hortense Beck in her 85th year, 2005