Star of the West? Or Waste Not Want Not?

 

This patchwork pattern appeared in The Wichita Eagle, Kansas on July 18, 1936.

“Waste not – want not,” for if you’ve not wasted your bright scraps of material, you’ll surely want to make this striking quilt – “Star of the West.”  The three simple pattern pieces making the piecing so easy to you with complete, simple instructions for cutting, sewing and finishing, together with yardage chart, diagram of quilt to help arrange the blocks for a single and double bed size, and a diagram of block which serves as a guide for placing the patches and suggest contrasting materials.

 

 

Star of the West

 

Star of the West is a Laura Wheeler design.  It is almost a square in a square pattern but with irregular setting triangles which add a sense of movement. The design is based on a traditional block, and a clue to the original patchwork block is in her description.

 

Waste Not

 

‘Waste Not’ is the traditional block.  The design is symmetric without the offset triangles. It appears in Maggie Malone’s book “120 Patterns for Traditional Patchwork Quilts” (1983) and in “The Farmer’s Wife Sampler Quilt” (2009) by Laurie Aaron Hird, but I am unable to find an original source for the pattern.

 

I do prefer the Waste Not block to the Star of the West, but this layout does look pretty nice.