What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 London Roads must have been a popular quilt block, I have a number of antique London Roads in my collection.  The design is a 9-patch, so simple piecing and a variety of colour placement.

This is a big block, 15 inches square.  Each of the nine patches is a simple pattern that work together to make an interesting patchwork block.

Another big block with some bold material choices.  The blue print is a globe encircled by a crescent moon and five stars; the red print might be hockey sticks or little flags.

This block is smaller with some good use ...

 Block 15 of the Sew-a-Long 1930s Style is the Martha Washington Star. I have done a previous post on this pattern but it's worth looking at again.

 I am preparing to run a Block of the Week sew-a-long and I would love you to join me!

What's involved?  

The sew-a-long is based on traditional blocks from the 1930s. Everyone is familiar with the Kansas City Star newspaper that printed a patchwork pattern every week. The KC Star was certainly the first and the longest running pattern publisher, but did you know that there were dozens of syndicated columns with hundreds of newspapers also publishing patterns?  That is the inspiration for this sew-a-long.

 Each 6-inch block will be accompanied by some historic information, a picture of the ...

 It is not too surprising that quilt blocks sewn during the 1930s had names like Thrifty Wife, Economy Patch, and Odds and Ends.  Using scraps of fabric was one way to make quilts and the Depression years was certainly a time of Making Do.

Economy Patch

This article was printed in the Oklahoma Farmer-Stockman newspaper on New Year’s Day, 1936.

Tobacco sacks: loose leaf tobacco for roll-your-own cigarettes used to come in little drawstring bags, small enough to fit ...

 This orphan block is made from a pattern simply called Turtle.

I'm guessing it was a challenge for the maker.  It is hand pieced with very neat stitches but the outcome isn't quite right.  The block doesn't sit flat and the triangles aren't quite large enough. There appears to be some machine stitching in the top pieces that has been removed; perhaps an attempt to square the block up.  Orphan blocks often look like this, they are the ones that could not be joined together with their friends.

I have not found the Turtle in the ...

 2021 is half gone, hard to believe.  In 2020 I posted a Kansas City Star block every day on my Facebook page.  This year I chose quilt blocks from Nancy Cabot of the Chicago Tribune and the block #182 for 1st July was Indian Charm. 183 patterns to go til 2022.

There was a superstition among the ancient quiltmakers that black, included in a coverlet, was not to be taken as a good omen, and no one ever dared consider it in combination with other colors. When "Indian Charm" was adapted from an old Indian pattern the original designer defied ...