Handsome Quilt - Unusually Easy

This block was a free gift.

It was enclosed with some other blocks that I had purchased from an online seller.  It is a 1930s applique pattern.  The house is made of a single piece of material that is attached to the backing with buttonhole stitch. The 'trees' are buttonholed and the house details are added with embroidery.

This style of house block was popular in the 1930s.  I found a newspaper pattern from November 1937 for a similar pattern.  According to Barbara Brackman it is a Laura Wheeler design #726 called Enchanted Cottage.

Handsome Quilt - Unusually Easy

Pattern 6384

Quiltmaking is always fascinating - but think of the fun to be had when it's an Enchanted Cottage that decorates your block.  Use up your gayest scraps for the simple patch that forms the house.  Do the shrubbery in a plain material for effective contrast.  Finish with a bit of outline stitch.  Pattern 6384 contains the Block Chart; carefully drawn pattern pieces; color schemes; directions for making the quilt; yardage chart; illustration of quilt.

The newspaper is The Land, a rural newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.  The Australian newspapers used the American quilt patterns that were so popular in the 1930s.  The Aussie newspapers seem to have a quilt pattern as an occasional feature rather than a syndicated column.  (The exception is the Adelaide Chronicle competitions which is a whole other blog post.)


And just to prove that the pattern is from an Australia newspaper, here is the advertisement in the adjoining column.

"I was the best-fed crow in the state!" 

I was so glossy, fat and sleek ... I used to look and feed like an alderman ... and look at me now.  There was a tuck-in for us boys after every meal up at the Homestead ... and now they're got one of those darned Kerosene Operated Electrolux Refrigerators ... nary a scrap come out to us.  I haven't seen a bit of mutton around this place for weeks ... they're living on beef ... and pork ... and all the good things that city folks enjoy.  Since they got that Electrolux they're living like turkey cocks ... and the money saved on tucker which used to be thrown to the crows, more than pays for running the darn thing.  That's alright, but WHAT ABOUT US POOR CROWS?