Eight Hands Around quilt block

Eight Hands Around

September 25, 1933-Nancy Cabot published a pattern using the Eight Hands Around quilt block on this day. It sold for "5 cents in stamps or coin" as have all of her patterns to this date.

"Here we have a pattern that found its inspiration in the old-fashioned quadrille danced a generation or so ago," Nancy wrote about the Eight Hands Around quilt block.

She felt this block would have "a popular appeal to the thrifty quiltmaker, who will find that the pattern enables her to use all of those scraps of prints she has been saving."

In making my 6" block, I made all my corners that same but it would have been more historically accurate to make them all different. That's what's great about scrap quilting. You can just use whatever you have.





This block may be a little difficult for a beginner quilter. There are three "y" seams in each corner and several curves. This is how each corner goes together-

There is an excellent tutorial for sewing "y" seams here. You need to use this technique to add the two triangles and square.

This is how the corners fit with the rest of the pieces-

The center goes together like this-

 The curves need to be clipped alot to make a nice smooth curve that lays flat.

Sew on the corners and you are done! You can download a copy of the templates I used here.

Eight Hands Around is very similar to the Wandering Foot quilt block that was published in Nancy's Chicago Tribune column on February 5, 1933. The main difference between the two blocks is the additional piece in each corner of the Eight Hands Around block. The other difference is that the four pieces of the corner sections of the Eight Hands Around block were each to be made from a different print.

Wandering Foot

There is a copy of a page from a 1932 publication entitled Colonial Quilts that shows an Eight Hands Around quilt block. It is at the bottom of image 14. It varies slightly from Nancy Cabot's version in the corners. The corner is not curved and is made up of four diamond shapes instead. There are three quilt blocks made like this here. They are at the bottom of the image.

Tomorrow-Roses and Tulips