Friendship Links quilt block

Friendship Links

December 24, 1933-On this Christmas eve, Friendship Links was the pattern Nancy Cabot published in the Chicago Tribune.

I love the story behind this block. "Friendship Links seems rather a fitting name for a design offered to all the friends of this column on the day before Christmas.  Two women planned this design, each using the fabric of her dress for the intertwined links. We can imagine what a chain of memories these quilts brought to the women who, though good friends, were separated by miles of prairie. That the pattern and the idea behind it were popular is testified by the fact that these quilts are to be found in all parts of the United States and Canada," explained Nancy.

Wouldn't it be fun to exchange fabrics with friends to make a quilt using this block?

I found a red, white and blue antique Friendship Links quilt here. I haven't found any old patterns by this name.

Friendship Links is an easy block to make. The pieces could easily be rotary cut, but for a 6" block, the dimensions are in 16ths and most rulers don't have those markings on them so I decided to combine methods. I cut the center from templates and paper pieced the corners my 6" block. Check out my paper piecing tutorial here.

Here are the paper pieced corners I used with the center that was cut from templates. The center  has been pieced using the partial seam method to add the rectangles around the center square.

The three center sections were then sewn to make a diagonal row like this-

The three new sections are sewn together to finish the block. You can download my pattern here.

Friendship Links can be found in Electric Quilt's Blockbase program as #4189.

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