Martha Washington's Needlework

by Patricia Cummings

photos by James Cummings

Martha Washington’s pieced counterpanes and extant embroidery are fine examples of the kind of needlework that was produced in the eighteenth century. This article takes a look at textiles created by the First Lady, as well as quilt block designs that have been named to honor her. All of these stitched items comprise a large body of work that is an integral part of our nation’s needlework heritage.

"Mother of Our Country" Sets the Pace

Martha Dandridge Custis Washington, first lady from 1789-1797, was a skilled needlewoman. Two pieced counterpanes are attributed to her. The word “counterpane” is an eighteenth century term that could indicate any number of different textiles used as the top cover of a bed: a woven coverlet, a woolen blanket, or simply one layer of cloth with fringed edges. Martha’s counterpanes can be loosely compared to less elaborate cotton bedcovers called “coverlets” in the northeast, or “summer spreads” in other parts of the United States.

Historic Encounter Remembered in Cloth

“The Penn Treaty Counterpane” made by Martha Washington, circa 1785, features a medallion style quilt layout. The name of this piece is derived from the center copperplate print fabric which depicts an October 1682 scene in which William Penn (1644-1718) is said to have signed a “Great Treaty” with North American Indians for the purpose of land acquisition.

No copy of this treaty exists today. Some historians have concluded that the treaty never existed or perhaps was destroyed so that its terms would not have to be observed. However, at the time that Martha created her counterpane, the print panel that depicts this historic event, that reportedly happened more than one hundred years before, had just become available.

An additional example of this special Penn Treaty fabric is one that was made in blue threads and is presently located in the textile collection of the Winterthur Museum in Delaware, according to Printed Textiles: English and American Cottons and Linens, 1700-1850 by Florence M. Montgomery (New York: Viking Press, 1970). She states that bed hangings of this same design fabric were sold in Pennsylvania in 1788.

Second Counterpane Attributed to Martha

A pieced counterpane made by Martha at a later time is referred to as an “Unfinished Bedcover, 1790-1800,” in the exhibition catalog, First Flowerings: Early Virginia Quilts by curator, Gloria Seaman Allen, (Washington, D.C., Daughters of the American Revolution Museum, 1987). This rare and out of print book was published to accompany an exhibition that year of the same name.

The pieced counterpane featured in the catalog was purchased by Martha’s granddaughter, Elizabeth (Eliza) Parke Custis Law, after the death of the first lady. Passed down through the family, this textile was eventually acquired by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association in 1949. Part of the reason these two counterpanes are thought to have been created by Martha is that they contain two identical fabrics.

The copperplate print that Martha chose for the corner squares of one of the “frame” borders is one of children at play. A piece of this fabric in a black colorway is shown in the Montgomery book and the author describes some of the activities the children are engaged in, such as playing marbles, and feeding poultry.

The “frame quilt” layout of these two counterpanes is a style that has enjoyed popularity in England for centuries. Americans refer to this kind of layout as “medallion quilting.” The idea is to start with an embroidered or pieced center, sometimes placed on point, and to build outward by adding borders or “frames” until the desired size of the quilt is achieved. To learn more about how to make a quilt of this type and to see other early examples, please see The Art and Technique of Creating Medallion Quilts by Jinny Beyer (Virginia: EPM Publications, 1982).

History Facts Updated

An article, “A Portfolio of Great American Quilts,” in Woman’s Day magazine, June 1949, features a quilt called the “Martha Washington Quilt.” The quilt is shown displayed on the authentic bedstead at Mount Vernon that was shared by President George Washington and his wife, Martha. The name, Martha Washington Quilt, implies that the entire quilt was made by Martha. However, this information is not true, according to those who have studied the quilt.

The embroidered center of this quilt is thought to have been the only part of the quilt stitched by Martha. According to researchers, the center might first have been used as a christening cover. That was the conclusion reached by Miss Townsend, Curator of Textiles at the Boston Museum of Art, and Mrs. Lopardo, textile specialists who both studied the quilt in 1955.

Furthermore, this pair of researchers dated the quilt’s print fabrics to later in the nineteenth century. Were Martha to have constructed the quilt, all of the fabrics in it would have had to have been available prior to 1802, the year of her death. The age stains and darker coloration of the white center of the quilt leads to the belief that the borders were, indeed, added at a later time.

Heavily quilted, the layout of this quilt is the same central medallion style as the counterpanes. The first pieced border or “frame” that surrounds the center was called “Folded Ribbons” by the magazine. Roxa Wright, the needlework editor at Woman’s Day who wrote the article in question, calls the white cloth which divides all of pieced units “homespun” fabric. That same kind of cloth divides all the subsequent borders, in turn.

The other frame motifs include “Chained Squares,” “Pieced Stars,” and a large scale “Sawtooth Edge” motif, that is used for the final border. There are also some appliqué blocks located in the corners of two of the center “frames.”

Nancy Gibson, former curator at the D.A.R. Museum, states that the patchwork pieced borders of this quilt were most likely added in the nineteenth century. She and her mentor, quilt historian Gloria Seaman Allen, have searched through countless primary source documents, (old estate inventories from Virginia and diaries), in an attempt to find other textiles made by Martha, but have found no additional ones. They conclude that only the two pieced counterpanes, not quilted and containing no batting, are the only bedcovers known to have been made completely by Martha, acting alone.

How exciting it was to find out that Martha Washington was handy with a needle and that these three examples of her work are in the care of Mount Vernon, the spacious Virginia estate formerly shared by George and Martha!

Martha Washington Remembered

Martha Washington has always been thought of as a kindly woman and as an icon of colonial life. She was a very pretty woman who loved horseback riding and who refrained from voicing her own political opinions while her husband was still in office. At seventeen, Martha had married Daniel Parke Custis, a wealthy landowner. In the eight years that they were married, Martha had four children, two of whom died in infancy. At the age of twenty-five, Martha found herself to be a widow with two small children.

When she met George Washington at a cotillion ball, they fell in love, and married. George proved to be a kindly stepfather to her two surviving children: Martha (called “Patsy”), and Jacky. Fate was not kind. George and Martha lost these two children when they were seventeen and twenty six years of age, respectively. After that, the first lady comforted herself by caring for two of her grandchildren, Eleanor Parke Custis, ("Nelly"), and George Washington Parke Custis, ("Wash"), whom she and George raised at Mount Vernon.

Martha Washington Wreath - an appliquéd block

"Martha Washington Wreath," a quilt block in tribute to the First Lady, re-created by Patricia Cummings. photo by James Cummings.

Quilted Tributes to Martha

Knowing of Martha’s own fine needlework skills makes it seem even more appropriate that she was remembered by name when designers chose quilt block names. A significant number of tribute blocks named for Martha and other first ladies were created during the Colonial Revival Era of the 1920s and 1930s. They stem from a deep-rooted fascination with all things colonial at a time when our nation was looking reverently and nostalgically to the past.

Home decorating trends and the wish to re-establish core values of a “simpler” time may have contributed to the focus on Martha Washington. “Martha Washington’s Rose Garden” published by Home Arts in the 1930s, is a block comprised of hexagons which are assembled by hand, using the technique of English paper-piecing.

An appliqué block, “Martha Washington Wreath,” utilizes the colors of red and pink for layers of the flower petals and yellow circle of cloth for the flower center. The color palette is completed with green leaves, and all motifs appliquéd onto a white background. This pattern was recorded in The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt by Carrie Hall and Rose G. Kretsinger (Idaho: Caxton Printers,1935). Not surprisingly, a similar block with slightly different leaf shapes is called “President’s Wreath.”

The International Quilt Study Center has a searchable database of their quilts online: http://www.quiltstudy.org/search/index.html

There, it is possible to view an image of the “Martha Washington Wreath” quilt in that collection, a particular quilt that has been assigned a date of circa 1850-1860. The same quilt is published as “Rose Wreath” on page 68 of A Flowering of Quilts, edited by Patricia Cox Crews (Lincoln, Nebraska & London: University of Nebraska Press, 2001).

In addition to these tributes to Martha, early twentieth century designer Sophie LaCroix is responsible for creating a new quilt block which acquired two different names: “Martha Washington Rose,” and “Martha Washington.” I have never personally seen an example of this block design made into a quilt. As presented in the Blockbase program, the block’s construction appears to be too complex for most quilters and involves curved piecing. Sophie and another designer, Amy Conway, created patterns for an art needlework company called St. Louis Fancywork. According to Barbara Brackman’s Blockbase program, the two women produced a pamphlet called “Martha Washington Patchwork,” in 1916.

Martha Washington Star

"Martha Washington Star" quilt block, as reproduced by Patricia Cummings.

Yet another block, called “Martha Washington Star,” “Martha Washington Design,” or simply, “Martha Washington,” was published in Farmer's Wife in 1926.

Martha’s Legacy: Extant Family Quilts

The Shelburne Museum and Tudor Place in Georgetown, D.C. both have quilts made by Martha Washington’s granddaughters. Her descendants' ongoing interest in the work of the needle provides a glimpse into the sphere of influence created by this high spirited lady. Though at first Martha appears very demure, she could be playful. Examples of that have been cited in The Look-it-Up Book of First Ladies by S.A. Kramer (New York: Random House, 2001). For example, on one occasion, Martha shocked her uncle by riding a horse up and down the stairway of his home. Information like this delights the reader and makes those who occupied the White House so much more “real.” For most of us, Martha Washington epitomizes an idealized vision of what a “good woman” should be.

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We are indebted to the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association and to the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum for their assistance provided in the initial creation of this article.

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Additional photo images provided in the original article, as previously published in January 2005 in The Quilter magazine, www.thequiltermag.com

Martha Washington Unfinished Bedcover 1790-1800

William Penn Treaty Counterpane

Embroidered Center of so called “”Martha Washington Quilt”

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