Civil War Crossings

Barbara Brackman 


KIT8120 

Quilt Size: 68"x78" 

Stock #KCS 6378 

Civil War Crossings can be coordinated 

with Barbara’s 2008 online Underground 

Railroad Club from C&T Publishing and 

her 2007 book about the Civil War entitled 

Borderland in Butternut and Blue. 

Samplers from either publication can be kitted 

in these fabrics.

THE ALLIANCE FOR 

AMERICAN QUILTS 

www.centerforthequilt.org 

The Alliance for American Quilts, a national nonprofit organization founded in 1993 and 

now headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina supports and develops projects to document, 

preserve, and share the history and stories of quilts and quiltmakers. The Alliance brings together 

institutions and individuals from the creative, scholarly and business worlds of quiltmaking to 

advance the recognition of quilts in American culture. 


The Alliance’s four core projects are: 

Th e Qu i lt In d e x 

A national online database of quilt images and records bringing together institutional and grassroots 

collections. Institutional partner: Michigan State University 

Qu i lt e r s’ S.O.S. – Sa v e Ou r St o r i e s 

Grassroots oral history project preserving the stories of today’s quiltmakers from all over the US 

and abroad. Archived at the Library of Congress’ American Folklife Center 

Qu i lt Tr e a s u r e s 

Multi-media portraits profiling key quilt revival pioneers including quiltmakers, historians, collectors, 

teachers. Institutional partner: Michigan State University 

Bo x e s Un d e r t h e Bed 

Rescue and recovery efforts to save quilt ephemera, preserving items families and collectors find in 

boxes of quilts. Institutional partner: the University of Texas at Austin, Center for American History’s, 

Winedale Center for the Quilt 

For more information, visit www.centerforthequilt.org or contact Amy Milne, Executive 

Director, at 828-251-7073 and amy.milne@quiltalliance.org. Mailing address: 125 S. Lexington 

Avenue, Suite 101, Asheville, NC 28801. 

The image on the right is a close-up of a block from the 

Eula Parris Smith quilt which was completed during 

the migration from Tennessee to Texas circa 1900. 

This quilt is archived on the Quilt Index in 

the University of Tennessee collection. 

This quilt was the inspiration for the Civil War Crossings quilt. 

The pattern for the Civil War Crossings quilt will be featured 

in Quilters Newsletter Magazine. 

Kits for the Civil War Crossings Quilt (KIT8120) will 

include a copy of the magazine. 

inspiration

1850-1880 


 

Barbara Brackman

8124-19 Ivory Tallulah 1850-1883 

ivory 

This reproduction collection from 

Barbara Brackman echos the time when 

America’s rivers defined battlefields 

North and South. Each print is named for 

a river — the War’s lifelines, barriers and 

borders. From the Susquehanna near 

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to the 

Sabine near the Texas Gulf, the waterways 

marked the War’s tragic progress. 

Colors recreate traditional natural 

shades---madder, buff and Prussian blue. 

The prints, drawn from quilts of the time, 

include a patriotic postwar flag print and 

a tiny patchwork-like stripe. Stories of the 

Civil War continue to fascinate quiltmakers 

who will be thrilled to find authentic 

updates for their reproduction quilts. 


8121-14 Buff 

Susquehanna 1860-1883 

8123-14 Buff 

Suwannee 1850-1881 

buff 

8125-14 Buff Cumberland 1840-1873 

8125-19 Ivory 

Cumberland 1840-1874 

8121-19 Ivory 


8127-19 Ivory 

Kanawha 1860-1884 

8128-14 Buff 

Shenandoah 1860-1880 

Civil War Crossings by Barbara Brackman for

8129-14 Buff 

Rappahannock 1850-1881 

Fabric reduced to show detail. 

double pink 

8128-18 

Double Pink 


8120-18 

Double Pink 

Rapidan 1860-1882 

8123-18 

Double Pink 


madder red 

Madder shades range from dark chocolate brown 

through reddish and pinkish browns, brick reds and 

oranges to pale salmon. 

8124-11 

Madder Red 

Tallulah 1850-1880 

8127-18 

Double Pink 

Kanawha 1860-1883 

8121-18 

Double Pink 


8126-14 

Madder Red 

Sabine 1850-1882 


8121-11 

Madder Red 


8123-11 

Madder Red 


8127-11 

Madder Red 

Kanawha 1860-1880 

8122-11 

Madder Red 

Potomac 1870-1880 

8125-11 

Madder Red 


Civil War Crossings by Barbara Brackman

8120-12 Prussian Blue 

Rapidan 1860-1880 

Designing 

Reproduction Fabrics 



8121-12 

Prussian Blue 



Sabine 1850-1880 


Potomac 1870-1881 

8125-12 

Prussian Blue 


The designer has to keep two major factors 

in mind when reproducing accurate fabrics. One is 

finding an authentic print; the other reproducing the 

colors of natural dyes. 

Because print styles changed with fashions and 

technology, the designer needs a large file of fabric 

with different images and sets. Designers call these 

old fabrics “document prints”. For Civil War Crossings 

I was thinking of the decades from about 1860 to1880 

when popular styles included foulard prints (regularly 

repeated small figures that often form a diagonal grid), 

paisleys (India-inspired designs), patriotic themes and 

striped sets. 

I find my document prints by collecting old blocks, 

fabrics and quilt tops. Several friends contributed to 

this line. Katy Christopherson gave me a block with 

the patriotic flag print, probably from the mid-1870s 

when the Centennial exhibition celebrated national 

unity. Collector extraordinaire Arnold Savage gave me 

the large paisley stripe. 

I am always looking for prints that are not only 

authentic but marketable. For example, some foulard 

prints that were so popular during the Civil War for 

women’s clothing can look too spotty 

to appeal to today’s quilters. A fabric 

perfect for a hoop-skirted dress might 

be hard to incorporate into harmonious 

patchwork. I balanced the Civil 

War Crossings collection with a few 

stripes, a few gridded repeats and 

a few of the all-over repeat that 

designers call “tossed”. 

Accurate coloring requires a compromise between 

what was available 150 years ago and what is possible 

today. Nineteenth-century mills using natural 

dyes for cotton prints were limited in the colors they 

could obtain as well as in the color combinations 

possible. Today’s synthetic dyes can give us any color 

in any combination---a true luxury. But sometimes 

it’s difficult to obtain the old look. For example, the 


unusual yellow-green we love in old applique quilts 

was produced by over dyeing blue and yellow, a twostep 

process that produces a vibrancy hard to capture 

with synthetic dyes. Then time added another step 

to the process. The old fabrics faded with light, 

washings and decades of wear resulting in a variety 

of quirky greens which are just about impossible 

to replicate. 

But we are able to copy many of the authentic 

colors. Civil War Crossings captures well the 

warm browns popular in the mid-nineteenth century, 

colors known as Madder Style because they were dyed 

with the root of the madder plant. Madder shades 

range from dark chocolate brown through reddish 

and pinkish browns, brick reds and oranges to pale 

salmon. 

Madder dyes also produced 

a clear pink in a style that dyers 

called Double Pink because they 

usually printed two different shades 

of pink on a white ground. Civil 

War Crossings offers several copies of 

the classic fashionable for quilts and 

little girl’s clothing throughout the century. 

Mid-century blues came primarily from indigo 

or Prussian blue dye, both of which give a 

range from sky blue to the dark blue of a Union soldier’s 

uniform. Prussian blue was often printed with a 

neutral tan shade called buff. The buff and blue color 

combination was in vogue for clothing and decorating 

from about 1840 to 1865. 

Civil War reproductions are popular not only 

because of their link to the war, but also because the 

mid-nineteenth century was a time of clever design, 

harmonious colors and technological innovations 

that produced cotton fabrics 

with classic appeal. 

8124-12 

Prussian Blue 


8125-22 

Dark Blue 


8128-15 

Prussian Blue 


8127-12 

Prussian Blue 

Kanawha 1860-1881 

Prussian blue 


To read more about 

Double pinks and quilts 

of the last century, 

look for Barbara’s new book 

Making History: Quilts and Fabric from 1890 to 1970 

from C&T Publishing. (Stock #10569) 



Civil War Crossings by Barbara Brackman

8129-13 

Chocolate Brown 


8122-13 Chocolate Brown 

Potomac 1870-1882 


Kanawha 1860-1882 

chocolate brown 

8126-13 


Sabine 1850-1881 

8123-16 Rust 






Rapidan 1860-1881 

8121-13 



Delivery: September, 2008 

8125-13 



Asst. 8120-10 10 Yards of Each-Prints 

Asst. 8120-15 15 Yards of Each-Prints 

Asst. KIT8120 15 Yards of Each-Prints 

8120AB Bundle: 40 Skus 

8120JR Jellyroll – (40)2½"x45" Strips – Pk 4 

8120LC Layer Cake – (40)10"x10" Squares – Pk 4 

8120PP 5"x5" Squares – Pk 25 

KIT8120 –Kit includes fabric, pattern & binding 

Skus: 40 Prints 

Content: 100% Cotton

Civil War Crossings

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