Federal Chain quilt block

Federal Chain or Love Chain

June 9, 1933- The Federal Chain or Love Chain quilt block "was designed during the Civil war by a little old southern lady, who from her wheel chair watched the marching federal troops go by day after day.  The plain white block represents the the cotton plantation surrounded by the marching troops."  This is Nancy Cabot's story of the history of this block when writing about it in her Chicago Tribune column.

There are two parts to the Federal Chain block-a 25 patch and a variation of a snowball block.  I didn't make this block for my sampler of 6" blocks because I didn't want to try to make the little squares that would finish at 6/10"!  It's another of those blocks, like the Double Irish Chain block, that creates an overall design when used alone.





This block can be found in Electric Quilt's Blockbase program as #1015.  Here's a drawing of what a quilt made with the Federal Chain block might look like-

Federal Chain quilt

Though I show it as a two color quilt, I think it would look great as a scrappy quilt too. There's a link here of an antique quilt made Nancy's way.

Tomorrow- Indian Canoes