Yesterday Revisited BOM 7 ~

Block 7 - Weathervane

 

This is a block that I was not very familiar with. I don’t remember seeing it in my early years quilting and did not find it in any of my older books. But, it is in Ruby McKim’s book published in 1931, so it has been around for a bit.



 

I was surprised that I was not able to find anything about it online as far as its history. I checked several Civil War Quilt websites to see if I could find it and I didn’t. I would assume by the name to be one of those blocks associated with farming and agriculture as so many of them are and associated with the westward expansion. But, alas I was unsuccessful. What I did find is that I’m not the only one looking for history and information on the all encompassing web and not finding it!
  This is from the website - www.talesofcloth.com/blog

The author is a quilter named Jodi - Hi there! Thanks so much for taking the time to pop over to my website! I'm Jodi, and my husband Tim and I laser cut English Paper Pieces in the old hospital in Castlemaine Victoria, about an hour and a half north of Melbourne, Australia.

Jodi was doing some research and this is from her blog post on March 30, 2915:
Last week I finally branched out and bought Barbara Brackman's　Encyclopedia Of Pieced Quilt Patterns.　I'd been trying to do a lot of my research online, like I used to for my History degree (though I could, back then, access the University Journal Database). I'm learning a lot about quilt historiography in this project. Quilt historians write books, quilt museums don't tell stories unless you take a tour, and a whole century's worth of a whole nation's newspapers and magazines and their quilt block patterns are sitting in libraries around the United States on Microfiche rather than on the internet. (why? WHY?) I'm starting to think a visit to America is in order. Can I stay at yours?
So this week, I bought a book. And I'm excited again. Because it helped me put some big puzzle pieces together. Brackman writes about her interest in collecting old patterns, which then turned into a career as a quilt historian. She talks about the history of published quilt block patterns in America. Newspapers and journals advertised patterns available by mail order. Pop a coin in an envelope and receive the templates! Even as I read that, I got that same buzzy feeling I get while waiting for a fabric order to arrive. I'm so glad for Paypal, but things haven't changed that much, really!

While blocks were mostly shared in periodicals, quilt block names changed by region, but then a few quilting legends started to publish books, and more and more names became canonized.　Enter Ruby Short McKim, a creative and clever business woman with a supportive husband, who together, built a business around her artistic ability and needlework. She first started a quilting column in the Kansas City Star in 1916, and by 1931, she was so recognized and enjoyed that she published her first book,　101 Patchwork Patterns, which includes the first known pattern and mention of the Weathervane. It's　available through the above link for free!　 She writes, however, that the block, "dates back　to the time when great-grandmother used that commodity to "calc’late a change," instead of listening to a scientific forecast on the radio."
Did she just guess the block had been around forever? Or did she know of quilts made from her childhood? I think I need lunch with Barbara.　
 
I felt I had found a kindred spirit in Jodi! If you have an opportunity to check out her website, please do. She has a lot of interesting things there and if you enjoy English Paper Piecing….. well, just grab something to drink and jump in!