36 free quilt blocks, one a week with a guide to Jane Austen's England and posts about the people in her life.

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Block 35: English Ivy for the Littleworths

Block 35: English Ivy by Bettina Havig for the Littleworths

The Austens were gentry by grace of inheritance and through George Austen's position as Church of England clergy. In the hierarchy of Jane Austen's England they mixed with both their betters and their servants.

The Littleworth family were close-by neighbors in Jane's childhood. John and Anne Littleworth worked at the Parsonage---John with the Austen's coach and horses, Nanny as the family cook. As servants they were never social equals, but the Austens' and the Littleworths' lives were socially interwoven. (Littleworth is another perfect Dickensian name, reflecting their status if not their character.)

William Redmore Bigg was a "genre painter"
 who often depicted "cottagers," people of the Littleworths' class.

Block 35: English Ivy by Becky Brown
(I think she is running out of the larger prints but making do nicely.)

Note triangles pieced in to make a larger piece.

High Life Below Stairs, John Collett, 1763
When young Jane had her hair dressed before a ball 
Nanny Littleworth often did the styling.

"Cottagers" or "cotters," were people who lived in the village's housing tied to the manor. They worked in agricultural production or as servants to Steventon's higher classes. In Jane's childhood her father's relatives the Knights owned the manor, the farm land and the buildings in the village. The system obligated them to house the cottagers, employ them and to provide for the unemployable.

Bigg's painting of the Lady of the Manor and daughters assisting
a cottager in distress is in the collection of
the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Lady is accompanied
by her handsomely liveried black servant. Who owns the dog is not clear.

As Church of England clergy the Reverend Austen and his family were also under the same obligation.

English Ivy by Georgann Eglinski

Like her siblings Jane was nursed by her mother for the first few months and then boarded at a cottage with a neighboring family until she was toilet trained and ambulatory. Most Austen scholars believe the elder Littleworths provided that care. Jane was an intimate in their lives. She served as godmother to Nanny's eldest child born in 1789 and was a witness to an older family member's marriage.

Here Bigg idealizes the cottagers on their way to church. 
Apparently the dog must remain at home.

The cottagers were the majority of the church-goers in the small villages and they paid the taxes that supported the parson and his family.

Today Steventon has about 250 residents.

 In his 1871 book Jane's nephew James Edward Austen Leigh described the village of his memory:
"Steventon is a small rural village upon the chalk hills of north Hants [Hampshire], situated in a winding valley....The house itself stood in a shallow valley, surrounded by sloping meadows, well sprinkled with elm trees, at the end of a small village of cottages...."
The valley flooded in 1820, causing enough damage that the Austens' parsonage was torn down and the cottages were moved to higher ground.

A contemporary English cottage, either restored or reconstructed

The thatch-roofed cottages were built of white-washed cob, which is a mixture of clay and straw, like the American adobe. It really wouldn't do to have English ivy growing on those walls (pretty as it is--- the walls would crumble) but we can recall English country life and its hierarchy with English Ivy, a pattern given the name by the Kansas City Star in 1931.

BlockBase #1330

Cutting a 12" Block
A - Cut 1 square 6-7/8" x 6-7/8" Cut into 2 triangles with a diagonal line.

You need two of the largest triangles.

B - Cut 11 squares 2-7/8" x 2-7/8" (5 leaf color, 6 background.) Cut each into 2 triangles with a diagonal line.

You need 21 triangles, 10 leaf color, 11  background.
C - Cut a rectangle 2" x 9-1/4".

D - Cut 1 square 5-7/8" x 5-7/8". Cut into 2 triangles with a diagonal line.

You need 2 triangles, which you'll trim later..

E - Cut 1 square 4-1/2" x 4-1/2".

F - Cut 1 square 4-7/8". Cut into 2 triangles with a diagonal line.

You need 2 triangles.


English Ivy by Becky Brown

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