Alabama Quilt Block

This patchwork pattern is called Alabama. The block, made by Lena Wallace, is in the friendship quilt Malaga 1937 which I blogged about back in 2016.  In fact, I wrote a whole ebook about this quilt - the link is just down the page on the right hand side.

Alabama patchwork block

 

The Alabama pattern was printed as part of the All State Quilt.  The 48 states are in alphabetical order, so Alabama is the first one, top left hand corner.

 

 

 

 

The All State Quilt was published in Aunt Martha's Workbasket in April 1936. Although it was printed as a sampler, it was never intended to be made up as a sampler. "The quilt illustrated uses each of the state blocks. From the point of view of the maker of beautiful quilts, this is not quite correct, and we do not urge anyone to make such a quilt against her better judgement. As a curiosity, of course, it might be done, setting with narrow strips and squares. But a really pretty quilt will result if you repeat only one block."

 

The editor did not like sampler quilts.  In my humble opinion, I would rather make forty-eight different blocks once each rather than repeating the same block forty-eight times.

 

Malaga 1937   Washington State

 

 

 

 

 

Friendship Dahlia

 

The Friendship Dahlia appears to be a most popular quilt block in the 1930s.  It is an applique pattern with eight overlapping petals, a stem which was curved or straight, and a center circle to cover the petal points.  It was a "friendship" block because to get the variety of prints desired the quiltmaker needed to swap materials with her friends.  The block was also made without the variety as shown below (the overlapping petals were a bit challenging for Alma Hampton.)

 

 

 

The Friendship Dahlia design was an Aunt Martha favorite,  pattern number C397.

The instructions state to "crease to find the center and place eight petals around it."  If you look carefully at the first block pictured you can see the diagonal creases in the top corners.  Friendship Dahlia was printed in Aunt Martha's Favorites No. 3230.  The Aunt Martha patterns were also available by mail and were advertised in the newspapers.  

One may search a long time before finding a more beautiful design than this Friendship Dahlia.  The petals are made from with different prints, with a yellow center and a green stem - all to be appliqued on a white block.  The thirty blocks may all be the same flower, or by using small pieces of leftover materials the flowers may be variegated.  Cutting pattern and instructions, C397, 15c.  Order by mail only.  Allow a week to ten days for delivery.  

December 17, 1932   The Chattanooga News   Chattanooga, Tennessee

Nancy Cabot published the Friendship Dahlia in the following year, and again the year after.

A very modern design is the "Friendship Dahlia" - not nearly so old as the venerable "Friendship Ring," for which it was designed as a companion.  The different prints which formed the sections of the ring were originally furnished by various friends.  Prints of gay little chintz pieces will make a pretty dahlia.

May 28, 1933   Chicago Tribune   Chicago, Illinois

Friendship Dahlia is a gay, colorful applique pattern and one in which a variety of materials may be used. In the early days of the quilt friends exchanged samples of figured materials in order that they might have many colors.  It was considered most artistic to have no two appliqued dahlias alike.

December 19, 1934    Chicago Tribune   Chicago, Illinois

Another pattern in another newspaper.

 

 

 

 

Years ago every good housekeeper either owned or wanted "a Dahlia quilt."  And they are no less popular today for their colorful yet simple design fits perfectly into modern decorative schemes.  This is an ideal pattern for using up your bright scraps of cotton and silk and the ends of ties which every thrifty homemaker loves to find a use for.  The pattern includes detail chart with applique cutting pattern, color suggestions and complete instructions for working and making quilt.

 

June 14, 1937   Arizona Republic   Phoenix, Arizona

 

Aunt Martha's Hexagon Wreath - With a Swear Word or Two

"Aunt Martha" quilt kits first appeared in 1930.  The pre-cut kits did not stay in the market for long but Aunt Martha's pattern books and catalogues had a long print run from 1931 all the way to 1977.  You can find out more about Aunt Martha from Wilene Smith's research.

I now have pdf copies of a few of the Aunt Martha books.  The following one was one of the later books, printed in 1960.

One of the patterns is for a Hexagon Wreath, and I thought that a single block would make a nice sample quilt. This is the entire set of instructions; no You Tube tutorials or group forums, but how hard can it be?

I used English paper piecing to make sixteen hexagon flowers and sixteen leaves.  All I had to do was arrange them in a wreath and sew them together.  But I couldn't for the life of me make them fit together. They would only join into a six sided wreath, not an eight sided one.  After an hour of frustration I took a closer look at the pattern.

In the hand drawn picture, the hexagons aren't quite hexagons.  The hexagon flower at the top has the points facing towards the centre, but so do the ones on the side.  It is an optical illusion.  Great work Aunt Martha!

I unstitched the green leaves, placed them under the hexagons and stretched the wreath a bit.  Then some hand quilting and a binding.  I am glad I only had to make one!

Milady's Fan by Grayce

Grayce Wilson was the maker of this fan block.

Grayce Wilson lived in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania and made this block about 1938.  She was a farmer's wife with three sons, who all worked in the coal mines of western Pennsylvania.

According to BlockBase the name of this pattern is Milady's Fan, and it was published in one of the Aunt Martha series of pattern booklets.  With some Googling I found that Milady's Fan was in book #3500, "Easy Quilts".  Some more Googling located an Etsy seller with a digital download of "Easy Quilts", and very shortly I had a copy of the whole booklet.  What did we do before the internet?!

 

 

 

To make my own block I printed the BlockBase pattern onto freezer paper, ironed each piece onto my material and hand pieced the nine inch block.  It's an exciting challenge to find fabric to match the 1930s prints.  I took the original top on holidays and went through each quilt shop on the way with the top in tow.  My block is a good match for the colours, I doubt that I could find a similiar paisley print.

 

 

Milady's Fan