A few years ago I was rereading the Anne of Green Gable books when I ran across this passage:
"Yet with all this Mrs. Rachel found abundant time to sit for hours at her kitchen window, knitting "cotton warp" quilts - she had knitted sixteen of them, as Avonlea housekeepers were want to tell in awed voices."
Anne of Green Gables
Chaper I
Later in the series there are references to the quilts as spreads and having patterns:
"Mrs. Rachel has given you one of her beloved knitted quilts of the tobacco stripe pattern and she says when I am married she'll give me one, too."
Anne of the Island
Chapter XXIX
" 'I'm going to give Anne two of my cotton warp spreads,' she
resumed. 'A tobacco-stripe one and an apple-leaf one. She tells me they're getting to be real fashionable again' "
Anne's House of Dreams
Chapter II
So what was she knitting and what was she knitting it with? It took me awhile to do the research and even longer to write a blog post but this question pops up periodically in knitting forums and it is always answered in pieces. So I've collected those pieces, added a little research of my own, and hope to make a one post comprehensive answer. Here goes:
The Annotated Anne of Green Gables By Lucy Maud Montgomery, Margaret Anne Doody, Mary E. Doody Jones and Wendy E. Barry has the following note to "'cotton warp' quilt" :
"A particular type of yarn sold in stores and identified as such on the label. When it first came in, in the 1820s, this very soft yarn was used principally for weaving. What Mrs. Lynde makes is, strictly speaking, not a quilt but a bedspread. The common way of making such spreads with cotton or other thread is to knit squares on the bias and stitch them together, but Mrs. Lynde's quilt knitting involves elaborate lacy patterns. Montgomery herself knitted three such patterned quilts (see Appendix, "Homemade Artifacts")."
And the Appendix passage which is from Montgomery's 1914 journals:
"Today I began to knit a quilt...There have been so many days lately that I could do absolutely nothing,...Now, knitting has always had a good effect on me when I was nervous...so I began the quilt. It doesn't matter if I never finish it. Quilt knitting in this particular pattern especially always makes me think of Malpeque. I spent a winter there once with Aunt Emily. Every girls and woman in Malpeque had knitted, was knitting, or intended to knit a quilt -- some of them several quilts. They possessed so many patterns and considerable rivalry went on. Lace knitting was very popular also. I caught the fever and began a quilt. I think I was three years knitting it. It was very pretty but wore out long ago. Ten years ago I knitted a second which I still have."
What was Mrs. Rachel knitting?Mrs. Rachel was knitting a counterpane with cotton warp yarn. This activity became extremely popular from the mid 19th century thru the early 20th century and its popularity is also noted in this story from
The Gentleman's Magazine, July to December 1893
"We sit round in a circle in the best parlour, and are very solemn, and tea is handed round. Then we talk--at least the others do; for until the men come the women talk about nothing else but recipes for bacon-pickles and knitted cotton counterpanes. They make the counterpanes in little square or oblong bits, which are afterwards sewn together. They each have a piece which they are knitting, and there are hundreds of patterns in which they may be done; they discuss each pattern, so it takes a good long time."
A Village Fragment
by Mary Hartier
What are Knitted Cotton Counterpanes?A knitted cotton counterpane (counterpane, bedspread and coverlet are synonyms) is composed of squares, triangles, stripes or other shapes of knitted pieces that are sewn together to make a bed-cover. The word counterpane is also frequently used to refer to the patterned knit pieces themselves.
A knitted counterpane pattern from
Godey's Lady's Book, July, 1860 (a modern pattern translation is
here)
Additional knitted counterpane patterns:
Bedspread (Counterpane with Leaves)Leaf BedspreadQuilt (Square Counterpane with Leaves)Rose Leaf Counterpane
Knitting Counterpanes: Traditional Coverlet Patterns for Contemporary Knitters by Mary Walker Phillips is a popular resource book for contemporary counterpane knitters.
What are the patterns for Mrs. Rachael's counterpanes?The specific patterns used for the two counterpanes mentioned (A tobacco-stripe one and an apple-leaf one) are not known. Leaves are very common patterns used for counterpanes and there are many variations of tobacco and apple leaf patterns. Mrs. Rachael worked the tobacco leaf pattern in a stripe (a long narrow band) but the shape of the apple leaf pattern is not mentioned.
What is cotton warp yarn?Cotton warp yarn is cotton spun to be a strong and durable yarn for use in the warp of a woven fabric. Cotton warp yarn was (and still is) an easily available and economical choice for knitting a bedspread, as well as other household items.
The size of cotton yarn used for a counterpane would depend on whether a light or heavy bedspread was wanted. No yarn size specifics are given in the Anne of Green Gables literature or by L. Maud Montgomery. I provide it here for additional detail and interest.
Cotton yarn size is given with two numbers and is best explained by Rachel Brown in her book
The Weaving, Spinning, and Dyeing Book, ed.1987.
"These are numbers by which yarn size and ply are described.... Cotton, linen, woolen, and worsted yarns can all be described by count. #1 describes the size of the yarn that will be produced when spinning a certain base yardage from 1 pound of fiber.... For cotton, No. 1 is the size thread that results from spinning 840 yards from 1 pound of cotton fiber. #2 would be the size thread if twice this yardage (1,680 yards) was spun from 1 pound of cotton... #10 would be a thread 8,400 yds long weighing 1 pound. So the higher the number, the finer the thread. This is single-ply thread.... When the thread is plied, the number of plies is given along with the thread size, as 10/2 (2 plies of #10 thread) or 6/3 (3 plies of #6 thread). The first number is the size of the thread and the second number tells how many threads of this size there are in the final plied yarn."
| Comparison Chart |
| Cotton Yarn Size # | Approximate Weight |
| 10/2 | Fingering |
| 8/2 | Bedspread |
| 8/4 | DK (double knitting) |
| 8/8 | Worsted |
That's it! I now know what Mrs. Rachael was knitting and why they were so highly valued. Someday I wouldn't mind knitting one myself.
Update 10/3/2015: Read about my adventures in knitting a pattern square for a counterpane from the vintage book
A Knitting-Book of Counterpanes.
This is a special afghan made for my daughter Sarah to celebrate her move into an apartment of her own. We worked on the design and its features together and started the process with her requirements for an afghan -- big and warm with flowers! 
I got really lucky with a flower design when I found a newly published book, 100 flowers to knit & crochet by Lesley Stanfield, there were lots of flowers with wonderful dimension and detail to chose from. After crocheting and knitting up a few different ones we both liked the Anemone. 
