Embroidery on rugs

Much more beautiful and interesting in both color and pattern is the Caswell carpet. This was finished in 1835 in Castelton, Vermont. It was chain stitched by Zuriah Guernsey who later married a man named Caswell.

Her father was a spin­ning wheel maker. All the material in the carpet was grown and processed at home, including the hand-woven foundation fabric.

The embroidery was done in seventy-six eighteen-inch squares which were sewed together to make a rug twelve by thirteen feet, six inches. An indentation was left on one side for the fire­place, and a separate piece was made to place there over the hearth in the summer time.

Each of these seventy-six rectangles has a different design. Aside from a fantastic blue cat, some kittens and puppies, and a lover and his lass, they are all flowers, leaves and ferns, with a few birds.

The motifs are flat, intricate and graceful, and in almost perfect scale and harmony with each other. The background is black and the flowers are in a wide range of lovely colors.

Parts of this carpet have been reproduced so often in present day rugs that the general design is probably familiar to many of you.