Heritage

I was enjoying the vibrant blues, browns and golds in this fabric line, even before I learned the story behind the name “Eliza’s Indigo.” In 1739, at age sixteen, Eliza Lucas moved from her home in Antigua to South Carolina, where she would care for her family and manage three plantations inherited by her father. Relying on her study of botany in England, Eliza experimented with a variety of seeds, but it was with the indigo seeds sent from her father in Antigua that Eliza found success. Widowed at age 32, Eliza continued to manage the plantations and raise her family until she died in 1793, an educated, independent business woman of colonial America. Eliza Lucas Pinckney changed agriculture in colonial South Carolina, where she developed indigo as one of its most important cash crops. Maybe all quilt fabric should come with a history lesson.