Cheney Brothers silk furnishing / upholstery fabric length, A midweight drapey fabric with greenish-gold satin vertical stripes on a white plain weave ground. A Cheney Silks logo retail tag is stapled to the corner. (W. 50 in., L. 144 in.)
William Skinner and Sons wool back rayon satin Sunbak graphite blue fabric length; 1946. Strong, soft close fabric with rayon face & napped wool back. Is moth resistant. Used for reversible robes, and linings of women's and men's topcoats and jackets. Color graphite blue. Yarn sizes - warp 100/40 viscose rayon, weft 2 picks 150/40 viscose rayon, 2 picks 1/26 worsted. Fiber content by weight is 65% rayon 35% wool. Woven in Holyoke, MA.
William Skinner emigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1843, finding work as silk dyer. He eventually opened his own silk manufacturing company, the Unquomonk Silk Co., making silk threads and yarns for weaving and sewing. In 1874, the mill was destroyed when the Mill River Dam gave way. Skinner moved his company a few miles away, to Holyoke, Massachusetts, and rebuilt the mill, expanding production to include woven fabrics (Skinner satins were nationally famous) and silk braids. He ran the company until his death in 1902, and the firm stayed in the family, and remained in operation in Holyoke, until 1961, when his heirs sold it to Indian head Mills, which immediately closed the Holyoke operation.
Three block alphabets of 26 letters. Numbers to 9. Word "Marcellus" appears at end of one alphabet. Sampler worked in black silk with brown cotton used only for small period at ends of rows. Border of single row of long-armed cross at top, single row of herringbone on each side, single row of double cross at bottom. Silk thread on cotton ground. STITCHES: cross, long-armed cross, herringbone, eyelet, four-sided, crosslet, double cross. THREAD COUNT: warp 26, weft 26/in.
Inscriptions:
"With ink and pen. These marks will give. The lives of men. To all that live.
Worked by M Cook. August 1818."
Background:
Mary was born on February 22, 1806, to Daniel and Rebecca Pomeroy Cook in Skaneateles, New York. Daniel served in the Revolutionary War for three months at Saratoga in 1781, and died on August 3, 1806, in Marcellus, New York. Mary stitched her sampler while her family was living in Marcellus. She did not marry, and died on January 30, 1869. She is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York. The sampler descended in the family of her brother, Ira.
Said to have belonged to Queen Isabella; given to the donor by Her royal Highness, Infanta Eulalia of Spain. Needlepoint center, bobbin lace edging. Much mending and adding.
Point Plat de Venise needle lace. One cuff of a set of two. Poor condition.