Antique Hexagon Medallion- crazy quilt cheater fabric

I'm sharing more of one of my very favorite quilts (it probably has the largest number of different fabrics of any quilt in my collection and wonderful fabrics are they), my 1885 Hexagon Medallion.  It is almost a charm quilt but has a several repeats from a pre-printed patchwork, faux patchwork or cheater cloth of a crazy quilt.  But those hexagons all look different because the maker selectively cut them to highlight various motifs such as the butterfly. Note the faux embroidery stitching around the butterfly.

And here is the full quilt again. Don't you just love how it is assembled in rows of color!

Here's the crazy quilt cheater cloth that is featured so prominently in this quilt including the very center hex. Circa 1885, the heyday of printed patchwork and it is from Pacific Mills of Lawrence (Mass) and has the initials PML seen under the floral sprig in dark brown on black at the bottom of the swatch. (A big thank you to Deborah Kraak who has been researching printed patchwork).

 

 

And speaking of cheater cloth, there is another piece right below the lovely lady (stripes and dots). And the serenading lad and lady also appear to be cut  from the same fabric but again carefully cut to appear as 2 different fabrics.

Here's another shot (yes the dots and the single paisley are both from the PML cheater print -- she got a lot of bang for her buck out of that crazy quilt fabric)  And if you look closely you'll also see that the floral next to the dots also has a pieced look -- it is from another very similar faux crazy quilt print. 

The brown rosettes on tan fabric is the wonderful backing.  You can also see the simple but well done quilting, this was not a time of lots of fancy quilting.  Fancy embroidery on crazy quilts was instead the thing to do.

I think the maker must have had a keen sense of humor because there are some fun neighboring pieces, like the lad and lady and the butterfly and fox above.  And how about the egret? and the fancy Spanish gentleman

 

 

To see more pictures of this quilt in a prior post, click here or click here to see several entries with cheater fabric.