A Quilt By Any Other Name ... The Woven Coverlet

The study of antique quilts would not be complete without a discussion of related textile, the woven coverlet. Woven coverlets date back to the 1700s, but it is very rare to find one of those existing today. The coverlets that we still have date mainly from the mid to late 1800s. There are 4 distinct categories of woven coverlet: the Overshot, the Double Weave, the Summer and Winter, and the Jacquard. The coverlets pictured above include examples of Double Weave, Summer and Winter, and Jacquard.

The Overshot Coverlet, which is the simplest of the four, consists of a natural-colored warp linen and a homespun wool weft in a color. The patterns were a combination of stripes, squares, and diamonds. Overshot Coverlets were always seamed down the middle because of the small size of the home looms, and often the two halves did not match up perfectly. The earliest Overshot Coverlets are from New York.

The patterns used in Double-Weave Coverlets were geometric.The Double-Weave, however, was woven in such a way that the two warps joined so that the reverse side of the coverlet was a mirror image of the front. The front showed a dark design on a light background and the back was the reverse. Double-Weave Coverlets mostly date from 1725 to 1825.

Summer and Winter Coverlets are a type of double-faced coverlet that elaborate on a simple geometric pattern and were of a weight that could be used in all seasons. Most of the remaining Summer and Winter Coverlets are from Pennsylvania.

The last type of coverlet, the Jacquard Coverlet, is the most ornate and sophisticated of the four categories. The French weaver, Joseph Jacquard, invented a sophisticated loom upon which these coverlets were made. It had a series of large and small punched holes that activated the harnesses of the loom and made the pattern. The loom arrived in the United States around 1820 and could be added to looms that were already used for double-weave coverlets. This attachment allowed weavers to create larger, more complicated patterns with elaborate borders, and in some cases produce coverlets with no seam down the center. Rosettes, urns and eagles were very popular designs on these coverlets. It was also possible for the weaver to weave his name, the date and sometimes the name of the person who ordered the coverlet into the corner of the item. This is great for collectors today because we can easily identify these coverlets. After a weaver created a pattern for a coverlet, he often gave the pattern a name. It is unlikely that you will find two identical Jacquard Coverlets because the number of possible patterns that could be created by this loom was practically endless. Although these coverlets were more “mechanized,” they were made with hand-spun and home-dyed wool in the early years of their production and so maintained elements of hand-made works.

Please visit our Products page for specifications on the coverlets pictured above.

The information in this post is from the book, America’s Quilts and Coverlets, by Carleton L. Safford and Robert Bishop, E. P. Dutton, New York, 1980.