Bowties Are Cool

Nellie Sellar's block is a Bow Tie pattern.

I like almost all pieced blocks, but Bow Tie is not a favourite.  That diagonal square for the bow tie knot?  All the other pieces have to be set in around it.  It takes a long time to get it right and mine never quite lay flat when I'm finished.

I went to Carrie Hall's "The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt in America" (1935) to find a Bow Tie.  It wasn't listed in the index so I searched through the black and white plates to see if I could find it.  I did find it in Plate XVI - Hall calls it Necktie.  Her description is of the pattern is not especially helpful.

"This shows that the Colonial women were very considerate of the men-folk of their families."

I'm not quite sure what that statement means.  The photo of the block in the book is 1/2 inch square so I went online to find a better picture.

In 1938 Carrie Hall donated all her quilt blocks to the Spencer Museum of Art in Kansas, and the museum has the whole collection available for online viewing.


There are two Necktie blocks in the Hall collection.  This is the first one.

Now have a look at the second one.

No centre square, just corner triangles!  If it worked for Carrie Hall it works for me.

My block is 9 inches.  I cut squares at 2.75 inches.  The corner triangles are stitch and flip, I cut them at 1.75 inches square, sewed along the diagonal onto a white square, flipped and trimmed.

Turning the bowtie blocks create a range of settings.  If you check the Facebook page this week I will attempt to share a different layout every day.

Coming to America

Nellie Sellar's life is an example of the 20th century migration to the United States from the Old World as well as the internal migration towards the West Coast.

James Sellar and his sisters Joan and Barbara emigrated from Scotland to the USA in 1907 to seek their fortunes.  The siblings settled in Chicago, Illinois.  In the 1910 census James was a plasterer and both sisters were working as quiltmakers.

The USA was a sought-after destination for many hopeful immigrants in the early 20th century.  Just a few pages of the 1930 census for Chicago recorded residents and their parents being born in Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, England, Germany, Greece, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Madera Island, Norway, Poland, Scotland and Switzerland.

James returned to Scotland and married his childhood sweetheart Nellie.  Their first son James was born in Scotland before the family returned to Chicago on the SS Columbia.

James Junior was joined by sisters Helen and Elspeth; surprisingly, twelve years later, brother George was born.

The Sellar family left Chicago and traveled West to Wenatchee, Chelan County, Washington.  The majority of people living in Wenatchee had been born in the USA but not in the state of Washington - Wenatchee was a place people moved to from somewhere else.  Three pages of the 1930 census lists 27 different states as birthplace of the individual or their parents.

George Sellar was Nellie's fourth child, born when Nellie was 38.  George's arrival may not have been planned but his life was not insignificant; in 1971 he became Senator George Sellar and he served his community well until his death in 2000.  The highway bridge between Wenatchee and East Wenatchee was renamed the Senator George Sellar Bridge in his honor. 

Nellie would have been very proud.

Looking for the Goose

Gussie Herr's block is made from the traditional building blocks of patchwork - hourglass, flying geese and half square triangles.

I began the search through BlockBase to find a name for this block.  It always takes a while when you don't have a name to start with.  I was surprised when I found the closest match.

This block is Brown Goose.  It doesn't look like Gussie's block until you realise the only difference it the corner half square triangles which have been reversed.  That's why I love the traditional patterns, basic blocks are used to build up a multitude of different pieced patchwork blocks.

Brown Goose isn't the only name for this block.  It is also known as Gray Goose, Double Z, Devil's Claws, Framed X, Old Gray Goose, Old Maid's Puzzle and Ribbons. 

Ruth Finley says,

"While not particularly attractive, this pattern was widely used for every-day quilts .... because it was easy to piece"

Same block, different orientation.  This one was made entirely of half square triangles, reverse the top and bottom to get the Brown Goose.

This one is almost a goose, it needs some corners.  I wonder what happened.  Did she run out of material? Did it fall down behind the sofa and never finished? Maybe the maker was relieving the boredom of pregnancy, and once the labour pains started patchwork was forgotten ....