Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns Out of Print

I had some unsettling news.

 My Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns is out of print.

I know, I know the book is dead

An old-fashioned format for information....

But how are you going to figure out the name of an old quilt pattern?

#1493 Square and Compass

About 1890

Lost Ship by Barbara Brackman

#1362

Where are you going to get ideas for new ones?

I still have a copy. (Not in the best of shape as I use it nearly every day.)

If you don't have a copy you'd better get you one now.

The new books are twice the price they were a few months ago.

The used books are still reasonable.

It's been in print since 1979 in some form or another but people are still discovering it.

Click here to read Faith's post about it.

http://www.freshlemonsquilts.com/?p=1030     

and LuluBloom's

http://lulubloom.wordpress.com/2011/06/09/project-golden-

It's pretty low-tech. I typed it on an IBM electric typewriter (with variable spacing)

 and drew the pictures on gridded paper.

I photocopied copies for ten years and then AQS published it in hard back about 20 years ago.

I drew each one of those little blocks an inch square and tried to draw a tiny fabric pattern that the photocopy machine wouldn't blur or splotch.

I am sure that there will be some kind of higher tech version of this book in the future (and of the digital program BlockBase---also out of print.) But until then....

It's back to the used bookstore.

More Unknown Patterns

Leota sent this photo, telling me she couldn't find the pattern in my Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.

I couldn't find it in there either.

It looks like a simple fan from the 1930s or 1940s but the ends of the spokes are curved inward rather than curved outward.

Look at the corners where the blocks meet. The curved white shapes make a complex secondary pattern.

And Mary L. sent this one.

Should be on page 469: "8-Pointed Stars with points oriented up and down."

But it's not.

And here's the worst of all. I can't believe I can't find the design below.

Jessica sent this one. I couldn't find it in either my Encyclopedia of Pieced Patterns or Encyclopedia of Applique. It seems so common...but...

BREAKING NEWS:

On Tuesday the 5th, Tim writes to say that the pattern above IS in the Encyclopedia of Pieced Patterns. #3629.

It's drawn with the pointed blades a little short but that is it. Here's the BlockBase sketch. It was published by Hubert VerMerhren's pattern company (sometimes referred to as the Home Art pattern company)under the name Friendship Circle and also in Successful Farming magazine as Dresden Plate. Both were 1930s pattern sources. Thanks to Tim for looking in the right spot.

I am guessing that the top two designs came from the Laura Wheeler/Alice Brooks syndicated pattern column. The clues are the sophisticated geometrics that result in secondary patterning where the blocks meet. These look like the work of professional designers rather than quilters recording the folk art patterns they grew up with. That style is very typical of the Wheeler/Brooks columns in the 1930s. The column was so popular that I know I haven't indexed all their designs.

A few years ago I wrote a book called Women of Design: Quilts in the Newspaper. Here's some of what I wrote about this pattern source:

About 1933, a new quilt pattern feature began to appear in the Kansas City Star. Readers found smaller columns advertising patterns that could be ordered through the mail. A drawing of a patchwork quilt and a paragraph of description were followed by a last line reading “Send 10 cents for the pattern to The Kansas City Star, Needlecraft Dept., Kansas City, Mo.”

The Star forwarded orders to a pattern source in New York City that went by a number of official names. Quilt pattern collectors know little about this company, which was formed as Needlecraft Service in 1932. The name was changed to Reader Mail in 1944. Over the years, they’ve offered patterns for all kinds of needlework including crochet and clothing. Reader Mail is now located in Michigan and continues to offer syndicated advertisements in newspapers around the country. [It may be gone now.]

In some newspapers (their patterns appeared in hundreds of papers in the 1930s) the column ran under the names Laura Wheeler or Alice Brooks, fictional columnists who gave a personal touch to the feature. The Star patterns printed before World War II used no byline, so pattern collectors have learned to recognize the Needlecraft Service designs by their distinctive drawing style, which featured detailed calicoes in blocks drawn side by side to emphasize complex secondary designs.

Many readers were attracted enough by the lovely drawings and the innovative designs to invest their dime in “stamps or coin, coin preferred.” The pattern that arrived a week or so later included a detailed schematic drawing with suggested yardage on a sheet of tissue or newsprint about 15 by 20 inches.

These patterns were neither feature nor advertisement, but something called a “reader service feature.” Newspapers subscribed to the feature, knowing that readers, especially rural readers, enjoyed the opportunity to order fashion and crafts by mail. The paper and the pattern company shared those many dimes.

See more about this newspaper column in an August, 2009 post on this blog by clicking here:
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2009/08/laura-wheeler-patterns.html

I learned most of what I know about the Wheeler/Brooks syndicate from quilt historian Wilene Smith, who has started a new quilt history webpage called Quilt History Tidbits. Click here to see her page on Laura Wheeler and Alice Brooks.
http://quilthistorytidbits--oldnewlydiscovered.yolasite.com/laura-wheeler-and-alice-brooks.php
And bookmark the site. Fans of quilt history will love her detective work.
http://quilthistorytidbits--oldnewlydiscovered.yolasite.com/

For more information about Women of Design: Quilts in the Newspaper, click here:
https://www.pickledishstore.com/productDetail.php?PID=441

You can buy the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns from the EQ website which sells BlockBase, the digital version. The book version has OVER 4,000 PATTERNS. Just none of the above.
http://www.electricquilt.com/Shop/BlockBase/Encyclopedia.asp

Finding the Repeat

A few weeks ago I wrote about finding a quilt pattern in BlockBase if you know it's number (the Brackman number). It's a different process to find the pattern if you don't have the number. You have to use a visual interface ----your eyes.

First you have to identify the block. It's easy in the friendship quilt above as the makers have kindly separated each block with sashing.

Then you identify the main seams. Think as if you were going to piece the block. What kind of units and sub-units would you piece?

The logical way to do this would be to create an X-shaped nine-patch. I called this category Nine-X when I was developing the visual system for the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. You can go to the bound Encyclopedia or the digital BlockBase version and look through the pages classified this way until you come across the pattern.

#2895 Friendship Quilt

from the Kansas City Star in 1938

It takes a while to learn this system but it's worth it. Not only can you print out a pattern to make the above block any size in BlockBase, but you can use the information about the name and source to help date the quilt. It is very likely after 1938, after the pattern was printed in the paper.

In some quilts it's hard to isolate the block. This quilt from an online auction has many kinds of repeats going on. I always look at the corner of the design, which you really can't see in the photo.

I can usually isolate the block there.

Here's the block.

Here's the pattern structure. I classified this as Maltese Cross in the Encyclopedia.

And here is the design from BlockBase

#2721 Sugar Loaf from Hearth & Home magazine

What makes the quilt above so terrific is the way she shaded the corner shapes yellow and brown, creating secondary patterning.

Here's another. If you look at a corner inside the yellow border you will see the block.

Top left hand corner.

The block is one of the most basic. It's two half-square triangles. In this case one of the triangles is pieced of more triangles. I called this category a Two Patch in my Encyclopedia.

The block in question is #3161, which Ruth Finley called Birds in the Air, Flying Birds or Flock of Geese in her 1929 book. The diagram and the quilt are shaded differently but it's the same design. Again the maker has alternated darks and lights to get a secondary pattern.

Looking at the corner doesn't always work, but try it the next time you are puzzled by a design.

Buff and Blue Number 2

Julie from Tennessee sent photos of a quilt signed "E. Prouty" that she bought in upstate New York several years ago. She was confused by information in my Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns where I indexed the design as "California Rose," indicating it was published about 1898 in the Ladies Art Company's catalog of quilt patterns. The fabrics looked much older than 1898 to her.

Her question is a good one and illustrates the problems with indexing patterns because the names were only published after 1885 or so, 100 years after Americans started making patchwork quilts. Quilts in some designs were made directly from those turn-of-the-last-century patterns and publications, but quilts in other designs were made much earlier than their first published reference.

Julie's quilt is one of those older patterns passed around hand-to-hand before magazines and catalogs began to sell how-to patterns. The fabrics are the blue-and-buff prints in rainbow or fondu (shaded) style that were so fashionable in the 1840s and '50s for clothing and patchwork.

Although it's hard to date quilts from photographs, this high-style color palette was popular in the mid-19th century rather than at the end. She's right in thinking it's older than 1898. As far as a name: My Encyclopedia and BlockBase, its digitized version, show many rather romantic names and variations. Some are pieced and then appliqued to a square, which looks to be the case with Julie's quilt. Others are completely pieced as in the block on the right below.

There is no "correct" name for quilt patterns because names were so often set in print decades after the quilts were made. We have no idea what E. Prouty called her quilt, and Julie can call it what she likes.

The fabrics are a showcase of 1840-60 prints with quite a few rainbow prints and many bright Prussian blue plaids, stripes and eccentric prints. Do note the brown stains next to some of the blue and buff prints. I have seen this kind of brown color echoing blue patches before. It may be a form of dye migration.

If you'd like to read more about Buff and Blue prints see my posting for August 8, 2009 by clicking here:
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2009/08/buff-and-blue.html

I will be eMailing a subscription newsletter The Quilt Detective: Prints Color & Dyes this winter. You can read the first issue, which has to do with Prussian blues, as a free sample, by clicking here:

http://www.barbarabrackman.com/1%20Prussian%20Blue.pdf

For subscription information click here:

http://www.barbarabrackman.com/Newsletter%20Flier.pdf

If you'd like to make a block in the Victoria's/Caesar's Crown, Strawberry design you can print templates any size in my BlockBase computer program for PCs. The many variations are numbered from 3625 to 3665. For more information on BlockBase from Electric Quilt click here:

http://www.electricquilt.com/Shop/BlockBase/BlockBase.asp

Laura Wheeler Patterns

Gwen sent some photos for pattern identification.

"This quilt was given to me by a Mennonite friend, whose husband's great-aunt made this quilt…. It's an unusual pattern, one I've never seen except here in this quilt."

It's a complex design that looks to have been made in the heyday of polyester blends, the 1970s (when brown was a patchwork necessity). It is hard to identify the block but I noticed a seam in the dark brown sashing that defined a square so I drew it in EQ and here's what I saw.

It's actually a nine-patch so I looked up Nine-Patches with small center blocks in my Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. It was published as "Sunburst" by the company that used the name Laura Wheeler, probably in the 1930s. Their designer drafted a lot of really complex designs that rely on secondary patterning for effect. Some are so odd you rarely see them made.

Laura Wheeler is one of the names used for a needlework pattern source in New York City. Quilt pattern collectors know little about this company which was formed as Needlecraft Service in 1932. The name was changed to Reader Mail in 1944. Quilt historian Wilene Smith determined that Nathan Kogan, Max Levine and Anne Borne formed the business, but we have no idea who the actual pattern designers were.

Needlecraft's patterns appeared in dozens of newspapers in the 1930s and still run in papers today. The 1930s were the prime years for their quilt patterns and they also sold crochet, knitting, fashion and embroidery patterns. Fictional names like Carol Curtis or Alice Brooks gave a personal touch to the patterns that were neither a column nor an advertisement, but something called a "reader service feature." Readers sent a dime to a New York address at the Old Chelsea Station post office and received a full-size pattern in the mail.

The information on Laura Wheeler is from my Kansas City Star book called Women of Design: Quilts in the Newspaper. I drew a Block of the Month basket based on designs from important pattern sources of the thirties. Here's the block for Laura Wheeler, appliqued by debi shrader.

Ilyse Moore made the Women of Design sampler in batiks.

For more about the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns click here:
http://www.electricquilt.com/Shop/BlockBase/Encyclopedia.asp
For more about Women of Design click here:
http://pickledish.kcstar.com/?q=node/115