The Tile or Stonewall Quilt With an Unusual Style of Applique

Saturday, July 14, 2007

I love to find unusual and unique quilts to tell you about and the Tile Quilt is certainly that. This style quilt has also been called Stonewall or Stone Wall indicating a stone wall made of various shaped stones. Other names refer to streets or pavement. In the most basic form they are made up of odd sized shapes appliqued on a background leaving a narrow space of the background fabric between the pieces. Triangles and other geometric shapes are common but some of the shapes are more free form. The result looks like a tiled decorative piece with grout between the shapes.

The illustration to the right gives you an idea of how they might look but there are great variations in them and usually the space between the pieces is not a regular as my example. Some include pictorial applique as I've shown or even embroidered pictures. So, as you can see, there were no set rules.

Brackman suggests that "…these cotton tile quilts may be the predecessors of silk crazy quilts which are dated a few years later." One can see the similarity. The main difference is that the abstract pieces are separated by the strips of background instead of being sewn right against each other. They also lacked the decorative embroidery often seen in crazy quilts.

Although surviving American quilts in this style date in the last quarter of the 19th century Kimberly Wulfert has observed, "English quiltmakers would appliqué irregular shapes and printed motifs onto strips of fabrics on whole cloth size pieces, in center panels of medallions and into pieced blocks." The earliest she found was dated 1810. There were interesting variations in these quilts and you can read more about them by following the "New England Quilt Museum" reference link below. You will also find a great picture of this style quilt there.

References:

"Barbara Brackman, The Quilt Detective: Clues in Pattern, 2007, digital newsletter."

New England Quilt Museum's Collage Collection by Kimberly Wulfert
This article includes a picture of a tile quilt and the history of this style.

Another picture of a tile quilt can be found here.