My Underground Railroad Sampler Book Came in the Mail Today, and It is Perfect!
I try to do something special during February for Black History Month, and I bumped into this outstanding book while researching the Underground Railroad. The book itself is excellently produced, and the photography is outstanding. The book provides a detailed history of how slaves used quilts as a code to navigate the Underground Railroad.
The Underground Railroad Sampler Book provides detailed instructions for making the following quilt blocks:
Monkey Wrench
Wagon Wheel
Bear’s Paw
Crossroads
Log Cabin
Carpenter’s Wheel
Basket
Shoo Fly
Bow Tie
Flying Geese
Birds in the Air
Drunkard’s Path
Sail Boat
North Star
Burns Classifies the Following Quilt Blocks as Easy to Make:
Monkey Wrench
Wagon Wheel
Basket
Crossroads
Log Cabin
Shoo Fly
Flying Geese
Drunkard’s Path
Sail Boat
North Star
Burns Classifies the Following Quilt Blocks as Intermediate:
Carpenter’s Wheel
Bear’s Paw
Bow Tie
Birds in the Air
Transcript:
“The Underground Railroad wasn’t a train at all. The Underground Railroad refers to the 19th-century movement that transported thousands of slaves to freedom and a network of participants conductors who were both black and white shepherded the slaves called
passengers North to Canada. They [the conductors] harbored them in stations or safe houses
along the way. Their safe place may have been a church or a stately home or even a log cabin….”
Let’s follow a slave woman living in a small shack on a plantation in the South. It’s the 1830s.
She would be up at 6:00 a.m., working in the field all day long , and then she would come home and work all night at quilting. Oh they’d have the best quilting bees. They would rather quilt than sleep, and if the moon and the stars weren’t out they would hold the light for each other. The missus of the plantation may have given the scraps for this quilt….”
The patterns had stories and meanings behind them for instance there’s no straight lines in this quilt. They [the slaves] believed it’s bad luck to make straight lines or to make a perfect quilt …because evil spirits follow straight lines an imperfect quilt will distract the deviil in the night.
“The slaves couldn’t read or write, and their masters didn’t like them talking to each other.
Maybe quilts could help them escape from bondage to freedom. …Perhaps they had a secret meeting in their cabin and they would turn the pot over at the door to catch the sounds of their secret meeting there. They devised a quilt code made up of ten quilts. They would put one quilt
on the fence at a time ….The quilt would stay on the fence until all the planning to escape had been completed…
Runaways were forbidden to talk about this… much of this is hearsay, it’s just passed on stories it’s oral family history. some of the information I’m going to share with you today came
from this woman Mrs. Ozella Williams, and she was from Charleston South Carolina. she was told
this oral family history by her mother and her grandmother. Authors Jacqueline
Tobin and Raymond Dobard published the oral family history in the book Hidden in Plain View: The Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad.
[“In Hidden in Plain View, historian Jacqueline Tobin and scholar Raymond Dobard offer the first proof that certain quilt patterns, including a prominent one called the Charleston Code, were, in fact, essential tools for escape along the Underground Railroad. In 1993, historian Jacqueline Tobin met African American quilter Ozella Williams amid piles of beautiful handmade quilts in the Old Market Building of Charleston, South Carolina. With the admonition to “write this down,” Williams began to describe how slaves made coded quilts and used them to navigate their escape on the Underground Railroad. But just as quickly as she started, Williams stopped, informing Tobin that she would learn the rest when she was “ready.” During the three years it took for Williams’s narrative to unfold—and as the friendship and trust between the two women grew—Tobin enlisted Raymond Dobard, Ph.D., an art history professor and well-known African American quilter, to help unravel the mystery.
“Part adventure and part history, Hidden in Plain View traces the origin of the Charleston Code from Africa to the Carolinas, from the low-country island Gullah peoples to free blacks living in the cities of the North, and shows how three people from completely different backgrounds pieced together one amazing American story.” Amazon]
5:18 “Ozella Williams said The Monkey Wrench quilt was the first quilt displayed as a
signal for anyone who planned to escape. …
Start out with a background and a dark. take
two pieces of fabric take a rectangle
six inches by 12 inches of each of the
fabrics put them right sides together
draw a six inch line then draw diagonal
lines and so on both sides then all you
need to do is just cut them apart you’ve
got your four corners right here and
square these up to five and a half
more unit then we’ve got to get this
striped piece right here comes from
strips is the easiest part three inch
strips sew them together cut into three
inch sections and then all you need to
do to finish it is just put a three inch
square right in the middle well the
A monkey wrench is a heavy metal tool used by the blacksmith, and this quilt symbolized it’s time to collect the tools needed for the journey nor
Patterns included:
Monkey Wrench.
The Monkey Wrench Quilt was the first quilt displayed as a code on the Underground Railroad. It signaled to the Slaves that It Was Time to Gather the Tools Necessary for the Journey Ahead via the Underground Railroad.
“Monkey Wrench – It is time to collect and organize for the trip. Tools, food, any money the slaves possessed should be secured.” freequilt.com
Wagon Wheel
The Wagon Wheel Quilt was the second quilt displayed as a signal for slaves on the Underground Railroad.
“Wagon Wheel – This symbol’s message was to pack up those possessions they had been collecting and get ready for the trip.” freequilt.com
Bear’s Paw
The Bear‘s Paw Quilt was the third quilt displayed as a signal for slaves on the Underground Railroad.
“Bear Paw – A bear will travel to food and water, so this block advises the slaves to follow literally a bear’s trail through the woods to find something to eat and drink.” freequilt.com
Crossroads
The Crossroads Quilt was the fourth quilt displayed as a signal for slaves on the Underground Railroad.
Crossroads – “The crossroads were towns and cities where the travelers could find safety and protection. On the shores of Lake Erie, Cleveland was the main crossroad with a number of overland trails that all came together there. From there water routes to Canada took the slaves to freedom.” freequilt.com
The Log Cabin Quilt was the fourth quilt displayed as a signal for slaves on the Underground Railroad.
Carpenter’s Wheel
“Carpenter’s Wheel – The carpenter in this case was Jesus. This block, much like the song ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot,’ was a signal to follow directions and travel north to Ohio.” freequilt.com
Basket
“Basket – Food and provisions were always in short supply, and abolitionists would hang this quilt in view to indicate that food and tools were available to those who were in need.” freequilt.com
Shoo-Fly
Bow Tie
Flying Geese
Birds in the Air
Drunkard’s Path
Sail Boat
North Star
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