| Show POETRY IN BATCH RR Mrs Mulford wife of the clerk at the Arlington Hotel Washington has finished a patchwork quilt that is not merelp a quilt but a work of art It is a poem in patchesa symphony in samples of silk and satin It is seven feet square and is composed of fortynine different blocks arranged in rows each row separated by a division ribbon of dark red satin and each block divided di-vided from each other by a ribbon border of the same texture and hue Around the whole is a border drab brown satin traversed by seven rows of stitching in various silks The pieces are chiefly silk with many of satin and a few of velvet There are about 1000 pieces in the qUIlt and every piece has a history There are in it samples of silk from a wedding dress made hundreds of years ago in England when the looms wove silk as enduring as time There are in it specimens of the latest styles of gentlemens cravats And between these two epochs are hundreds of pieces of different times and all possible shades of color arranged in blocks of a general arabasque pattern the whole presenting a unity of designs that is marvelously symmetrical and a blending and shading of colors that is artistic in the highest degree Only an artist with a firm bold land a quick accurate eye and a true perception of the harmonies of art could have made it Some of the pieces are mere shreds In size and none of them are large With thEse materials are displayed taste and judgment and the result is not merely a quaint quilt but an ara basque in art The blending of the colors is the most admirable feature of the whole work The arrangement of the pieces is equally satisfactory The general result obtained is consequently con-sequently artistic Two of the squares contains a piece of brocade silk of the now fashionable color crushed strawberry It came from the wedding dress of Mrs Mulfords areat crmdmother and is 110 years old Another square contains a fragment of her own wedding dress Still another holds a small section of her husbands wedding vest one of those patterns in light silk which were fashionable before the war and which having gone out of fashion has been replaced by nothing half so elegant either in texture or in style Again another block has apiece a-piece of wedding dress of Mrs Mulfords bridesmaid Miss Sher ron with her initials worked in it This is the only block in the whole quilt which Mrs Mulford did not ivoik with her own hands Hundreds Hun-dreds of these pieces v ere sent to Mrs Mulford by her friends One block is called the Beach block because be-cause theft wife of the lion Lewis i Beach or isew loric contribute most of the pieces in it The predominant pre-dominant colors here are purple crimson black light blue green and others In one corner a crescent i moon attended by stars gleams out from a field of blue In the centre acluster of leaves are beautifully worked Very much of the work is difficult needle work done by Mrs Mulford Many of the pieces have various designs painted on them by the same lady whose abilities as an artist are highly appreciated by her I friends I Another block contains a piece of I Thomas Jeffersons carriage lining i which despite that Presidents well i known democracy was of silk The Japanese embassy sent another block On one of the pieces in this block is painted the ministers name in the strange uncouth Japanese characters Mrs Mahone sent some pieces which were arranged in a handsome block In this occurs one of the few pieces of velvet in the quilt One block contains apiece a-piece on which is scratched a lifelike life-like sketch of the fox and the stork at the famous dinner where the fox was worsted The expression given to the expectant but disappointed fox is perfect He is sitting on his haunches licking his chops while the stork with his bill deep into the narrownecked jug seems to say briskly and hospitably Help yourself Brother Eeynard t In another square the sagacious starling is dropping into the pitcher the pebbles that will enable him finally to take a drink In one block is a piece of silk from the curtains of the White House Some of the blocks have in them pieces of silk which are not made in this country Mr lambert Lam-bert the silk manufacturer of Paterson Pater-son N J in importing patterns from England has sent samples to Mrs Mulford to be worked in the quilt Mr Lambert was so struck by the crushed strawberry silk of 110 years ago that he manufactured a quantity exactly likeit In one of the squares Little Boy Blue is blowing his horn in all the glory of the Kensington stitch and in another a little girl on a stile seems to be in doubt which side of the fence to come down off A very elegant block contains a piece of imported English silk in which a perfect strawberry with a cap still on appeals to the eye for approval of its perfect shape One block holds a number of elephants Another has pieces sent by Senator Platts son a part of his cravat in which little pigs with a ring in their tails are ambling along with a larger ring on their backs But the quilt to be fully described would require far more space than this article ar-ticle can afford It has been seen by Minle and Proctors decorators who pronounce it the finest piece of decorative work they have ever seen It has been seen by a favored few at the hotel who are in raptures rap-tures over it It is really a sUDerb affair Mr and Mrs Mulfordleft Washington on Saturday for their home in Salem N J and took the j quUt with them |
