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| Title | Coverlet |
| Coverage / Year | 1855; Martinsville, Clark County, Illinois |
| Description | This coverlet was woven with red, dark blue and yellow colored wool and cotton yarns. Two mirror-image panels are stitched together at the long sides. There are five horizontal rows of large abstract daisy designs in the center of the coverlet, with side borders of thistle finches (distelfinks) and roses and a bottom border of a grapevine. The weaver's name and the date he wove the coverlet are in both lower corners. Total size is 86" x 72". |
| Interpretation | Coverlets differ from quilts because they are woven, rather than pieced, and usually made by men. The men who wove fancy coverlets in Illinois moved here looking for inexpensive farmland and/or markets for their wares. Most male Illinois weavers made coverlets to order and many were farmers who wove only during the winter months to earn extra income. This type of coverlet and the designs used on it originated in Germany and Austria. It was popular in American communities with large Germanic populations until factory-made blankets became readily available and affordable around the time of the Civil War. The birds (distelfinks) woven into the side borders of this coverlet were a popular German design on textiles, paper documents and painted furniture. The man who wove this coverlet raised sheep for their wool and flax to produce linen for weaving towels, sheets and cloth for clothing. |
| Lesson Plans / Themes | How we learn about communities; American communities in history; Westward Expansion; Antebellum Society and the Civil War |
| Learning Standards | 16 History; 18 Social Systems; 25-27 Fine Arts; |
| Author or Creator | Fasig, William, 1801-1885 |
| Source | Made by William Fasig; Donated to the Lakeview Museum by Merle H. and Barbara Glick |
| Subject / Keywords | Bedcovering; Bedcovers; Weaving; Coverlet |
| Collection Publisher | Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences
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| Further Information | For any further information related to this record, please contact the Collection Publisher. See http://images.library.uiuc.edu/projects/tdc for more information about this project. |
| Rights Management Statement | http://images.library.uiuc.edu/projects/tdc/conditions.htm |
| Resource Identifier | LVM1994.054 |
| CONTENTdm file name | 6258182162002_coverletfasig.jpg |
