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Jacob Lanzit Buys a Sewing Machine
A young man with a machineJacob Saul Lanzit (1834-1907) came to the United States from Czernowitz in what is now Ukraine in 1858 in his mid-twenties. He kept a diary as he prepared for his journey and...
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Masonic Quilts & Anti-Masonic Paranoia
Collection Illinois State MuseumWhat's It All Mean?We often speculate about symbolism and meaning in antique quilt patterns---usually to no avail although people do love to make up stories. Fraternal...
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A Modern Friendship Basket ca. 1933
Nebraska Friendship QuiltDated 1936Notice the edge of diamonds. Tricky binding!This is such a great example of "modern style" during the 1930salthough it may look anything but modern to us.The pattern...
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Quilt Market My Virtual Booth 2022
Quilt Market & Quilt Festival are scheduled for the week of October 29th to November 6th in Houston, Texas.I often do a virtual booth.I thought I might boycott Texas due to its current political...
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Southern Spin #8: Noxall
Noxall by Becky BrownPattern #8 in our Southern Spin sampler is Noxall, published by Hearth & Home magazine about 1900.BlockBase+ # 3557Noxall was an advertising pun, sort of like Uneeda...
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The Roosevelt Rose Quilt
In January, 1934 Good Housekeeping magazine published The Roosevelt Rose quilt pattern. Franklin Roosevelt had been inaugurated as President nearly a year earlier during the depths of the Great...
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Letter to King Charles: Unrighteous Indignation
Detail of the "Chalice Quilt" probably dating to1900-1930. Collection of the American Museum in Britain.Here's an open letter to the new King of England.Dear King Charles:You may have noticed a...
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Drunkard's Path - Nonesuch Variations
NonesuchBlockBase+ #1469Related to its BlockBase neighborChain Links.Both from the Aunt Martha pattern company.And also published in the Kansas City Star in 1940 as Jig Saw Puzzle,sent by Violet Sory...
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Pennsylvania or Maryland: A Mathematical Star
I saved these pictures from a 2015 auction and lookedat them again recently because I was interested in names for thisvery popular design.This one with a double scallop border and corners of...
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Quilts Dated 1840
Collection of the DAR MuseumThe initials stand for John L Benson & Temperance A Benson1840Some random thoughts on quilts with that date, a year when quilt stylewas changing.Temperance Ann Money...
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Seven Stars in the Ladies' Home Journal 1912
Library of CongressWomen and handwork on the porch of a newly built homefrom the Farm Security Administration program in Flint River Farms, Macon County, Georgia, 1939. Picture by Marion Post...
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Southern Spin #9: Compass
Southern Spin Block 9: Compass by Denniele BohannonQuilting by Becky CollisOur Last Block.Becky Collis's versionIt's certainly a classic pattern. BlockBase #3661 with two 1930s names.Variations...
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Polk's Fancy Quilts #1: Political Quilts of the 1840s
Between 1840 and 1870 American quiltmakers developed a wide variety---thousands---of applique florals. We could describe them as formally symmetrical with 4-way-mirror image symmetry or two-way...
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Polk's Fancy Quilts: #2
Teri Klassen and I have been trading pictures of quilts in the Polk's Fancy design. This mid-19th- century top was from an Iowa family, she writes. The block is the regulation Polk's Fancy. The border...
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Polk's Fancy Quilts #3: Beyond the Cliches
The Polk's Fancy pattern we've been looking at in the recent two posts is certainly evidence that women in the mid-19th-century used quilt patterns to express political preferences. If one looks in the...
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Sexagon Quilt in Savannah 1828
Patchwork cover of 6-sided shapes, pieced over papers dated1792-1803, Newark MuseumIn her 1828 will, 57-year-old Esther Sheftall of Savannah, Georgia left 2 "sexagon" bed covers to her 17-year-old...
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National Recovery Act Quilts from the 1930s
The Know-It-Alls are going to be talking about quilts from the Franklin Rooseveltyears 1933-1945 in our Episode #21 premiering on December 14th.Here's a link to the $12...
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Embroidered Shirts: A Little Handwork on the Western Frontier
Collection of the Arabia Steamboat MuseumKansas City, MissouriA shirt that survived an 1856 ship wreck on the Missouri River---When I first saw this shirt in their display years ago I guessed it was...
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Hewson Quilt on Display in St. Louis
You have just a few weeks to see this fabulous Hewson quilt ondisplay at the St. Louis Art Museum from their colleciton.It's on exhibit with another of their chintz quilts, part of a show Global...
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The Average Quilter Today
The average quilter is a retired woman in her 60s.Premier Needle Arts conducts an annual survey of quilters. Here’s this year's analysis of their “average quilter.”Has a household income of...
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