Something Old, Something New

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  It's the last Saturday of the month, and time for airing some quilts from my collection.

It's a pink parade for April, which has been pink month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I'm not really pink's biggest fan, so I don't make or buy a lot of pink quilts, but these called me to take them home.  Sadly I have no information on the original makers of any of these quilts.

Doll quilts always catch my eye.  If in perfect condition, they can cost a fortune.  But if it's in perfect condition, doesn't that mean a child never played with it?  Very sad.  The ones I buy are well loved.

This little one is kind of wonky.  Maybe a child made it?  Or a mama in a hurry?  All the work is by machine, including the quilting and binding.  It's hard to date quilts with only solid color fabrics, but I'm guessing around 1900, give or take 10 years in either direction.

Next up, a quilt that's both old and new.  I bought the blocks in an antique mall, and set them together with plain white and reproduction fabrics.

Even though pink is not my favorite color, these little blocks just insisted on coming home with me.  My guess on an age for them is circa 1930. 

I was apparently too lazy to make a label, but at least I wrote some information in the border.  Good heavens, I finished this 18 years ago this month!

Have you ever seen a quilt like this before?  Hundreds of quilts were made from this pattern, published in newspapers in the 1930s.  It's called The Alphabet Quilt, and the designer was Florence La Ganke Harris, who wrote under the pseudonym of Nancy Page.  

This is the announcement of the series from the newspaper.  Some of the papers ran contests for completed series quilts.

The Nancy Page column published a quilt block each week in the late 1920s through the 1930s, with the fictional Nancy advising her quilt club on how to make that particular block.  For the series quilts, Ms. La Ganke sometimes changed the format.  The Alphabet Quilt is being made by "Aunt Mary" for her young niece Joan, and Mary is sharing her progress with her friends.

Here is one of the newspaper patterns.  Quilters often cut them out and saved them, maybe planning to make the quilt someday.  (I can definitely relate to that!)

Most of the blocks in the quilt are simple applique, meant to be familiar to a child.  The last block is very unusual.  Ms. La Ganke gave quilters a choice.  They could either embroider X Y Z to finish the alphabet or they could do as this quilter did, and embroider the word YOU to make it a signature square.  (Either way, they would have 24 squares instead of 26, and could put it together 4 blocks by 6 blocks.)

This is the reason I bought these blocks on Ebay many years ago.  The maker has embroidered the name of the intended recipient, Billy Shannon, on the left, plus Mama and 1931.  In pencil she has written the word "from" just before Mama.  I felt like this project needed to be completed.

When this came to me, it was a UFO from at least 70 years ago.  All the blocks were done, and the pink frames had been added.  (Pink was not considered an exclusively girl color in the past.) 

I'm sorry that Billy Shannon never got his quilt.  I finished the blocks with vintage fabric, including the backing and binding, and did some simple quilting.  If I had any idea who the family was, I would pass it on to them.

Florence La Ganke designed many other series quilts, among them the Magic Vine, which was redone by Eleanor Burns a few years ago.  Patterns for these quilts and/or copies of the originals can be obtained from online sellers.  Check out this article on Nancy Page (Click HERE) by Wilene Smith for more information on Ms. La Ganke herself.

And now for something completely different.

I love to catch my young grandsons playing together peacefully.  It's not always like this! But they really do love each other.

In the week ahead, I'm wishing you peace and love.  And happy quilting!

Thanks for reading,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Angela at So Scrappy

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Cynthia at Oh Scrap