Sears, Roebuck sponsored a quilt contest at the depths of the Depression promising an enormous $1,200 first prize. Almost 25,000 quiltmakers entered. Merikay Waldvogel and I have spent years looking at the quilts, the contest and the scandal.
Color added to a 1933 sketch from Capper's Weekly of the top winner.
Stuffed work quilting & the newly fashionable shade of green
that came to define the 1930s were undoubtedly assets in the judges' eyes.
Two of the four final judges pose with their choice: Sue Roberts from Sears Publicity Department and Mary McElwain (standing) owner of a custom quilt shop in Wisconsin.
Margaret Rogers Caden of Lexington, Kentucky won the $1,000 award.
We have no color photo of her "Star of the Bluegrass" as the quilt remains missing
despite our 40 year search.
Collection of the International Quilt Museum
https://www.internationalquiltmuseum.org/quilt/19970070550
This is a copy by an unknown maker from a post-fair pattern by Mountain Mist.
Not quite the same green or skill level in the stuffed work quilting.
The stuffed work or trapunto leaf design was an important part of the winning design and its copies.
Mountain Mist sold the patterns as "Star of the Bluegrass."
Reverse of the fernlike spray between the stars
The quilter layered two fabrics and quilted the design's outline;
then added extra cotton batt through small holes to puff out the leaflets.
And we did an online lecture a few years ago on the topic.
Merikay is the keeper of the World's Fair stories. Do see her Legacy file at the Quilt Index which connects you to about 30 entries.
And see a post from a few years ago in which I HOPED the winning quilt was up for sale.
Jennifer Chiaverini's Elm Creek Quilts series most recent entry The World's Fair Quilt retells the story as fiction.
In the next post more about the pattern and it's Kentucky regional links.
