Ye Crazy Fan Started it All
Just recently while studying the patents for Kursheedt's embroidered silk appliques, I found an intriguing Design Patent by Fanny Gillette that was granted on July 1, 1884. The stitch designs looked very familiar as I had seen them on MANY different ads, trade cards and in books and booklets.
The book Fancy Work Recreations by Eva Niles had a several pages of the stitches. Singer offered 100 Crazy Stitches for Patchwork on a trade card with the Patented on July 1, 1884 date on it, using the same stitches.
T.E. Parker, Weldon's, Brainerd & Armstrong, Sapolio, Durkee Select Spices, plus others offered stitch guides using the exact same stitches.
Yale Silk Works, Weldon's, T.E Parker, Strawbridge & Clothier, Hanington, and others offered crazy block layout designs that used these stitches as a guide to embellish the seams.
And it all started with Ye Old Fan. The stitch designs ended up on crazy quilts.
FYI: Fanny Gillette was the sister of King Camp Gillette of the Gillette razor fame; and daughter of Fanny Lemira (Camp) Gillette who in 1887, at nearly sixty years old, published the White House Cook Book: A Selection of Choice Recipes Original and Selected, During a Period of Forty Years' Practical Housekeeping.
Kursheedt's Standard Silk Appliques
Did you ever wonder how some magnificently stitched designs on crazy quilts did not seem to match the stitcher's ability to stitch the seams? Were there multiple people involved? Yes, and probably some machinery too.
Back in the 1860's embroidery machines were developed and in the 1870s, Kursheedt imported several and started tinkering with them; and by the early 1880s started patenting some embroidery designs and machine modifications.
In the winter of 1883 and into 1884 Kursheedt started an advertising blitz across the country offering samples and trade sheets of their Fashionable Specialties. Their designs were prominent in many of the ladies' fashion magazines of the day - Delineator, Demorest, Godey's, Ladies Home Journal, etc. They even offered a quarterly magazine of their specialties. By the end of 1884 and into 1885 - the height of the Crazy Quilt Era - ads and articles showing images of the Standard Silk Appliques were in many periodicals. Godey's even offered one in color.
In several articles involving fancywork, the Kursheedt appliques were mentioned as being "exceedingly handy for ladies neither the time nor taste for embroidery" with "hundreds of beautiful designs" to "finish tides, scarfs, mats, and toilet sets."
No mention of using them on crazy quilts, but we all know they were, as I have numerous examples on crazy quilts in my collection.
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