Why Red?

by Steffani McChesney

Redwork, although not a quilting technique, is enjoying a Renaissance among quilters. Those of us of a certain age remember the tea towels and tablecloths embroidered in red of quaint domestic scenes, days of the week, children, or the faces of the presidents. They were all over the place. My grandmother had drawers full because she liked to embroider. I wondered why they were always red because her sewing box was full of skeins of all kinds of bright colors.

As with most mysteries, the answer was to be found in necessity. Silk and wool could be dyed in many colors and were colorfast, for the most part. But they were expensive and, therefore, not accessible the majority of women. Affordable cotton thread was not colorfast until the Turks developed a red dye from the madder plant, which they used to dye the wool used in their carpets. When the red madder was found to be colorfast in cotton, everyone could afford to buy it. Later, a colorfast blue dye was developed and was used to do the same simple patterns, but it was never as popular as Redwork.

Early Redwork was brought to this country by German immigrants in the 1880s and was called Turkey Work because of the origin of the dye. The technique became popular all across America encouraged by newspapers, magazines and the Sears catalog. Patterns were printed weekly in newspapers for women to trace on to muslin or linen. Magazines gave away patterns for a subscription. Sears and Roebuck and other catalog companies sold penny squares, small squares of stamped muslin ready to be embroidered. These six to ten inch blocks were used for pillowcases and shams, quilt tops, and sofa pillows.

Redwork was used to teach young girls to do needlework much as samplers were used in colonial times.  Many girls looked forward to the Saturday shopping trip to town so that they could select a new pattern to work on the next week. The ladies held weekly pattern-swapping parties to enlarge their collections.

The Redwork craze began to fade in the late 1920s when threads of many colors became available using new methods to make them colorfast. At around the same time DMC cotton embroidery floss became available in this country.

People still like the quaint designs popular in the 20s and 30s but new ones are being developed to spark the interest of a new generation of Redwork enthusiasts. Our own talented Guild member, Margaret Ward, is in the process of writing and designing two books of new Redwork patterns. One book, due out in May or June will feature heart designs and the other due out in August or September will contain bird and birdhouse patterns. I wonder if we will have to do them only in red.