National Book Lover's Day

Check the Moda Cutting Table Blog

for more about this blog hop

and prizes.

Sarah Beth at Moda asked the designers to blog today about a book from which we learned to quilt OR a book that influenced us to start quilting.

Here's a book that did both:

In 1965 I was in college. All the girls in the dorm at the University of Kansas had quilts on their beds. Being from New York City, I did not. I decided to make one. At the public library I found two or three books on quilting. I checked out this one looking for a pattern and some instructions.

Patterns---a thousand.

Instructions---pretty slim.

But it really did change my life.

Carrie Hall indexed quilt patterns by name,

something that inspired me to extend her index for my 

Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns and 

Rose Kretsinger discussed applique and quilting,

showing reproductions that she and the women

in Emporia, Kansas were making.

I have made many quilts and written many books myself based on The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt in America. You can see my books over in the left hand column here.

One of the things that fascinated me about Romance 

was that Hall included patterns named for Kansas towns.

Like Topeka Rose.

This version by Prairie Atelier

Topeka Rose

By Will Work for Fabric

When I taught beginning quilting in Topeka, Kansas, I used the Topeka Rose for my basic applique design. It's a great starter pattern.

How did it get that name?

I soon discovered that Carrie Hall had lived in Leavenworth, Kansas, and traveled around giving "quilt talks" in the area in the 1920s and '30s. When she went to a town she designed and named a pattern for the place or the club she was visiting. There were patterns named for Leavenworth and Tonganoxie, among other nearby towns.

In 1935 she donated all the blocks she'd made and photographed for the book to the University of Kansas. 

I have spent almost fifty years looking at that book

and getting ideas for quilts, research and writing.

Here's my version of the book jacket's Orchid quilt by Rose Kretsinger.

The pattern for this Iris quilt is in Making History: Quilts & Fabric from 1890-1970.

Rose used orchids; I used iris.

I did a book called Carrie Hall's Sampler, featuring some of my favorite blocks, which has a pattern for the Topeka Rose. I've found many versions from around the world made from the Sampler book.

The Hall/Kretsinger book was in black and white, but you can see color pictures of Carrie Hall's blocks at the Spencer Museum's website.

Click here:

At the top right type the words Carrie Hall into the search line.

888 images will come up---blocks in alphabetical order.