Do You BOM?

This quilt-a-long may be for you....Sew Kind of Wonderful's 2019 BOM - visit Sedona.  The Trails version pictured in black and white measures  63" x 68".   The sampler quilt design incorporates both straight pieced blocks and curved pieced blocks.    Mini Quick Curve Ruler required.

Should you decide to take Sedona quilt-a-long challenge, each month you will receive your block pattern along with the "Trails"   row quilt layout. 

or if you choose to work the wonderfully colored Sedona sky, your sampler row quilt will finish at  80" x 103". 

Both layouts are included in the pattern.  **Again, the Mini Quick Curve Ruler is required. 

Get 30% off the cost of the pattern while it's on sale by entering the code  SEDONATHIRTY at checkout.   

Happy Sky and Trails to you ~

Yesterday Revisited BOM No. 10......Corn and Beans

I'm a country girl so corn and beans are old standbys....at the dinner table or on the sewing room cutting table.   Have fun with BOM 10.  Your challenge will be not when to start.....but where to stop.  Here's how you do it ~

Here are a few inspiring pictures found on Pinterest ~

Lovin' every minute of this job.

BOM #9 - Wind Blown Square

This quilt block is known by several different names – Wind Blown Square, Windblown Star, Whirlpool, Balkan Puzzle, and Sea Glass to name a few.

The earliest mention of the block I could find listed the block name as Whirpool and was found in a quilt in Maine in 1778, but I was unable to locate a picture or location of this quilt. 

The Ladies Art Company published a quilt pattern catalog in 1897 which included 400 different block designs.  Many of the block names used in this publication are still with us today and some have evolved into different names by designers and publishers as well as regional names for the same design. This block design was listed as block #334 under the name Mosaic #6

 Ruby McKim published this pattern in 1931.  The block also shows up in the catalog of Nancy Cabot in the Chicago Tribune under the name of Balkan Puzzle and Windblown Star in 1933 and Flowing Ribbons in 1935.  It was also called Whirlpools in 1935 in the Birmingham News by Nancy Page.
In Nancy Cabot’s publication about the block under the name Windblown Star she did not have a lot to say except “it could be traced to a quaint, seaside town in Maine.”  Due to this description the block also became known as Sea Glass after the depression.

Today if you go looking for reference to Sea Glass quilts you will find everything under the sun except this design!  This name has been used for many different blocks and quilt patterns, a good example of how block names and designs evolve over time.

Yesterday Revisited: BOM 8 ~ Pieced Star

  Enjoy BOM # 8 - It's A Star.

Pieced Star PDF....this block as named by Ruby McKim in her book 101 Patchwork Patterns

THERE are many lovely versions of the star quilt piecing, varying from four points to eight, and even a feather edged pattern which scintillates with small points along all edges of its large ones. Star blocks have been named for many localities, Northumberland Star, California, St. Louis, and Chicago Star, which by the way, is quite different from the “Shooting Star!” Some are named for people, as “Dolly Madison’s Star” and the “Cowboy’s Star.” There are Morning and Evening versions, falling, flying, rising, rolling, and joining stars, perhaps a hundred varieties of this basic motif. The one here given is an airy, open-looking block about 11 inches square. It is made by piecing 8 small squares from two triangles each, and four oblong blocks of three triangles each, then sewing them together in the block as shown. Star blocks may be set together with alternate plain squares placed either horizontally or diagonally on the quilt. Here they make a handsome coverlet with white strips about 3 inches wide between two blocks joining with a 3-inch square of print at the corners, if seams are added. Material Estimate: 28 plain blocks, and 28 pieced, 7 wide and 8 long, finishes 77 inches by 88 inches. Allow: 5 1/2 yards white, 3 1/2 yards print.

Thank you Pinterest....for this pieced star eye-candy

The Cabbage ~

Diane Redfearn,  Quilters' Guild Acadienne block of the month author,  you have intrigued my interest in revisiting quilts and quilt patterns from our past.  Thank you for each 2018 QGA BOM to date and the history thereof. 

Barbara Brackman's name and books have often been referenced so this morning I  took a look at Barbara's blog, Material Culture:  Quilts and Fabric Past and Present,  and what a historical tale she can weave.  Especially fun was her historical findings about The Cabbage.

Tailor with a head of cabbage 

Whether the customer,  the tailor or seamstress provided the fabric, the leftovers belonged to the
garment maker and were often thrown into a basket found under the cutting table.  Needless to say, when the customer provided the fabric they had the reputation of being stingy!  And when the tailor or seamstress provided the fabric, there would always be plenty of fabric available; thus more leftover for the basket.

The Dreamstress provides a delightful proof of the cabbage (and more historical information) from a 1760 painting by Antoine Raspal of a French sewing workshop where under the table is the basket filled with the cabbage.  It was about this time that cabbaging took up the connotation as we know it today.....a bit of private theft and skimming off the top.

Now I know and thought you would enjoy knowing too.....how precious are our scraps! 

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!

 
 
 
 

Yesterday Revisited BOM 6: Road to California

 

 

 

Another lovely quilt block that is known by many different names.   Also a quilt block name that applies to many different quilt blocks!

 

Since there are so many different Road to California blocks, it can be hard to find a history for this one design.  I did find an interesting piece written by Judy Anne Breneman, www.patternsfromhistory.com  

 

 

Road to California: A Quilt About a Destination

"By 1841, two wagon trains had penetrated the isolated Mexican Province of Alta California... Both wagon trains included women and children, the pioneer vanguard of countless westering families..." ¹

A Quilt Name Representing the Westward Journey

After researching this topic and looking at several examples of quilts named Road to California I've come to the conclusion that this name does not represent a single quilt block. Instead it signifies a great migration for the name, Road to California, has been used for several quilt block patterns.
The discovery of gold at Sutter's mill, a sawmill upriver from Sacramento, triggered a massive migration to California in 1849. Although gold had been found in California earlier this find got far more publicity first in San Francisco and then nationally. Thousands of gold seekers rushed westward in hopes of finding riches in gold.
With so many gold seekers and inflated prices many men returned home disappointed. Few women had gone west with the gold rush but some of the men saw other possibilities for earning a good living in the west. Farming, ranching and commercial enterprises inspired many to bring their families to California.
Soon it was not just the menfolk but families, often extended families, traveling the road to California. The incredible increase in population was a big part of why California was made the 31st state in 1850.

Various Patterns Named Road to California

Many of the Road to California patterns I've seen involve triangles. These triangles can represent birds and movement, both themes of the westward journey. There are many patterns that use triangles to represent the flight of birds. The Flying Geese pattern involves a series of triangles going in the same direction representing the migration of geese. It's not surprising that triangles were used to represent the migration of pioneers as well. The Road to California pattern to the left and those above include triangles as an important element. The pattern we often call Jacob's Ladder and at other times Underground Railroad is sometimes called Road to California.
The quilt pattern shown to the right is far different than the other Road to California quilt patterns I found. In her 1929 book Ruth Finely described this pattern as a most difficult one. Finley relates that the small pieces in the example pictured in her book were only one inch square. ² Although there are no triangles the quilt gives the impression of wheels rolling along toward California. You may know this pattern as Burgoyne Surrounded or Burgoyne Surround.
I looked over several examples of Road to California and designed the pattern in the upper right of this webpage on similar patterns by this name. It was fun to look over these quilts noticing slight variations. This pattern is a reminder to us that creative variations have always been a natural part of making a quilt.
The free pattern can be found at Road to California Quilt Pattern.

 

 

 

 

Road to California block layouts found at Meadowside Designs 

 

 

Yesterday Revisited BOM #5 - Clay's Choice

 

 

 

 

Sizzlin' hot programs ~

Oh yes....get 'em while it's hot!  Block of the Month programs from Stichin' Heaven.  Get one or all five of them now for only a $1.00 each.    This is too sizzlin' hot not to share. 

Just for grins.....here is Scrap Happy Sampler by Sherri Noel.  Each block is unique.  Wow....a journey to remember incorporating traditional piecing, foundation paper-piecing and even English paper-piecing. 

We can also Journey Around the Color Wheel by Sassafrass Lane by constructing wedges to create this modern circular design. 

 

Yesterday Revisited BOM 4: Old Maid's Puzzle

For such an old quilt block, recognized by most quilt makers, Diane says she didn't find a lot of history while researching the Old Maid's Puzzle quilt block.

That's okay, it is such a delightful block and one that can be set in so many different colorways and block settings, that historical info isn't always required for us to know that it's a genuine antique and one we'll have fun stitching. 

 

Block of the Month (BOM) #3

Churn Dash also found under block names : Broken Plate, Double Monkey Wrench, Double T, Dragon's Head, Fisherman's Reel, Hens and Chickens, Hole in the Barn Door, Indian Hammer, Puss in the Corner.........Shoo Fly and more. 

"Why so many names?", one might ask.    There's always a story, and the churn dash has one. 

Churn Dash

Picture credit:  National Parks Service  ~ Quilt Discovery Experience

The homesteader's life and their daily activities contributed names to many quilt blocks. Nineteenth century quilts reflect what women saw around them, and what was important in their lives, such as the churn, a common household item.

A quilt historian says that quilts had characteristics so localized that they could be classified geographically almost as easily as the Yankee twang or the southern drawl. But as the homesteaders traveled West, blending together on the trail and in the new territories, the patterns became intermingled and renamed.

The Churn Dash pattern, for example, has 21 different variations and names. But, whatever the name, one can be certain it was meaningful to the maker, for even the simplest quilt represented a considerable investment of time and energy. And when the cold winter winds blew snow through the chinked cracks of the log cabin, a quilt was a welcome cover, whatever its name.

The how-to-link PDF , including pictures of quilts using the churn dash block for design ideas as we lay out blocks for our own quilt top.   

Enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quilters' Guild Acadienne 2018 BOM

Block 2 of 2018 QGA BOM continues the theme "better today than yesterday" with  Broken Dishes.

 

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

2018 BOM ~ Yesterday Revisited

Introducing Quilters' Guild Acadienne 2018 block of the month  Click on the link to view the history and  download information needed to make your blocks and complete the quilt. 

January BOM - Shoo fly click on the link to download

and some samples of Shoo Fly quilts and blocks Diane found on Pinterest

 

 

Pictured is Diane Redfearn's  "Time After Time"  Yesterday Revisited BOM sampler quilt. 

Until next month....let's revisit yesterday together in this 2018 BOM beginning with the Shoo Fly block. 







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Do You BOM?

Want a jump start to the new year?  Are you a block-of-the-month-addict?  Do you love heirloom quilting?  Applique? 

Sign up now for "Love Always"  



Love Always in Red Colorway



Love Always in Multi Colorway

Now, this should satisfy every BOM craving.  Is this not a beauty....join now at Esther's Quilt Blog.  She's making it so easy to get the block each month while she celebrates a 10 year blogging and BOM career.