Quilt, Redwork Embroidery for Doll

Date1891

OriginAmerica, Pennsylvania, Lehigh County

MediumCotton

DimensionsOH: 25 1/4" x OW: 23 1/4"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, Funds given in memory of Gilbert and Irene Baumgarten

Object number2011.609.2

DescriptionRectangular small quilt embroidered with red outline stitches on white cotton in linear designs. The designs are arranged three across and three down, and consist of the following, from upper left: a girl jumping rope, a flower, a thistle, a butterfly, a seated girl wearing a mob cap, the insription "Hattie E Mory/ 5 Yrs 8 Months/ 1891", a baby's face with four sprigs in four courners, an owl, and four chicks facing a flower sprig. A line of embroidery forms a border. The piece is quilted with 7 to 10 running stitches per inch in small checks that form linear chevrons at the border. Bound with white cotton on the straight grain.

Label TextRedwork Outline Embroidery Doll Quilt
Hattie E. Mory (b. 1886) and Ida M. Mory (Mrs. John F. Mory) (b. ca. 1863)
Pennsylvania, 1891
Cottons; cotton embroidery threads
7–10 stitches per inch
25 1/4 x 23 1/4 in. (64 x 59 cm)
Museum Purchase, funds donated in memory of Gilbert and Irene Baumgarten, 2011.609.2
This quilt, sized for a doll’s bed, features nine unrelated motifs spaced three across and three down. The designs came from commercial patterns transferred to the cloth through ironing or pouncing and tracing. The designs of the seated girl at the center and the girl jumping rope were sold by Ladies’ Home Journal as perforated patterns ready for pouncing. Simple linear designs in playful patterns such as these were considered suitable for children as their first embroidery projects. Some companies produced patterns and stamped pieces called kindergarten squares intended especially for children. This quilt, signed “Hattie. E. Mory / 5 Yrs. 8 Months / 1891,” may well have been embroidered by Hattie and then quilted into a doll’s bedcover by her mother. The embroidery is less skilled in execution than the quilting and binding.
Hattie E. Mory was the daughter of farmer John F. Mory and Ida M. Mory, his wife, of Salisbury Township, Pennsylvania. Hattie was born in May 1886.

ProvenanceHattie Mory was probably the same Hattie E. Mory who shows up in the Salisbury, Lehigh, Pennsylvania, census for 1900. She is listed as the daughter of farmer John F. Mory and his wife Ida M. Mory. According to the census, Hattie was born in May of 1886.