More Cigarette Silks

In an earlier post this year, I lamented the lack of cigarette silks in my collection of vintage textiles.  I have corrected that now, with this recent antiques mall find:

This is an unfinished project, done in the crazy quilt assembly style.  Most of the pieces are true cigarette silks, printed with flags of various nations.  The silks are larger than the two that I have already, these are about 3 X 4".  Two pieces are commemorative ribbons from social club events with a European ancestry requirement.  These identical ribbons are dated 1927, and I have no idea yet what language they are imprinted with... will have to investigate "Kesajuhlet."  The world of old social clubs and secret societies is a whole areal of study on their own, a fascinating study.... for someone else!

The silks are machine sewn to a piece of muslin backing, then lengths of satin ribbon were machine sewn over the seams,  The maker hand stitched over almost all of the ribbon with a herringbone stitch.  What I want to know (and never will) is why the yellow herringbone stitching on the top horizontal row stops half way across, and why four of the silks are upside down.

What is fun for me is making connections with these vintage objects,  I'll never know the maker or the answers to the above questions, but I am certain that the hand stitches are done in Glossilla Rope embroidery cording ("Brighter than Silk").  I found a stash of new-old-stock Glossilla at a recent quilt show:

I have found it to be impossible to pull through regular cotton fabric, but it works well for couching or for the weaving thread in whipped and threaded back and running stitches.  Someday soon I will try it through silk.

Collectible Textiles

For a few years now, I have been working on a freelance art history project that necessitates looking through a major city's  newspaper page-by-page (the papers are not indexed by subject).  One of the perks of this project is finding pieces of other puzzles along with what I am supposed to be searching for. 

Over the past few years I have bought a few of these:

They are printed cotton flannel, and they were given away with packs of cigarettes.  That was all I could glean from price tags at antiques shops and markets.  Thanks to an accidental research find, I now know a bit more about them.  I recently found ads for these flags in the 1913 Cincinnati Times-Star.  Mecca brand cigarettes offered the flags as premiums, and Omar brand offered printed flannel Navajo blanket designs, like the one in the lower left here:

The ads were quite large, taking up one quarter to one third of a newspaper page.  I cannot confirm if 1913 was the earliest appearance of these flannels (also called "felts" by antiques dealers).  Later on, I noticed that on April 1, 1914, Cairo cigarettes was promoting two flags with each 5 cent package; "One packed regularly in Cairo and an extra blanket given with each package for a few days only.  Flags of all nations in brilliant colors."  This ad also noted that the flags measured 5 1/2 X 8 1/4."  In the May 6, 1914 Times-Star, an ad appeared for a "Free 8 X12 [inch] American Flag Blanket with a 10c oval package of MECCA cigarettes."  On May 20, 1914, also in the Times-Star, another ad touted, "Beautiful National Flag Blankets are packed with Egyptienne STRAIGHTS." 

These flags were made quite cheaply.  I have found that most of them have faded over the decades, and almost all of the ones in my collection show varying degrees of dye bleeding, especially the red dye.  I have seen a couple of quilts made from the national flags flannels.  Since smoking was nearly taboo for women at the time, it is fascinating that the premiums for a men's product were targeted to women for sewing projects!  I think that the concept of a series of small items given away in cigarette packs goes back earlier than 1913.  Small cards with various printed subject series (military ships, sports, colleges, etc.) can be found.  Harder to find are the silks:

I've only been able to secure these two.  These silks were sometimes stitched into crazy quilts.  I'd like to look into crazy quilts that have dates stitched into them and include cigarette silks.  That would give a fairly good indication of when the silks were made.  However, that is a project for some other time.