Yesterday I took a great stack of quilts to my Country Women's Association meeting to talk about antique quilts. It was great, I love talking about my collection and I got excellent feedback. I showed a number of friendship quilts and explained how I track down the women who made each quilt block.
Some quiltmakers were very thoughtful, adding a full name, a location or even a date. Other blocks remain a mystery.
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| Hope of Hartford |
This block is "Mine". It belongs to the Sugar Creek Township quilt top, made between 1942 and 1945 in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania. Mine is in the centre top row so it may have been the person who organised the whole quilt. Two rows down is the block "Mother." My assumption is that Mother is the recepient of the quilt, and the two signatures have been done by the same person; the capital M's are the same.
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| Dresden Plate |
I found an advertisement for a quilt pattern catalogue with the Hope of Hartford pattern. This catalogue was published by the Farmers' Journal / Farmers' Wife magazine (1877 - 2015). There was an annual quilt feature in either January or February. This is from the February 1945 magazine, courtesy archive.com. The catalogue was 10c, patterns were 10c each or 3 for 25c.
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Hope of Hartford - 12" pieced block. The original is in pink, green and white.
Mine has chosen to stick to the suggested pink, green and white. Interestingly, the design directly underneath the Hope of Hartford on the catalogue page is Twin Darts, also a block in the same quilt. Maybe the Sugar Creek Township quilt is closer to 1945 than to the earlier date of 1942.
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| Twin Darts |
