Autumn Leaves quilt block

Autumn Leaves quilt block

February 13, 1933-"Autumn Leaves" Design Suitable for Boy's Room" wrote Nancy Cabot in her Chicago Tribune column.  She felt the Autumn Leaves quilt block was "quite the prettiest of all leaf designs" and was to be "properly pieced in the typical autumn leaf colors of soft, mellow yellows, oranges and browns."

I guess my block isn't exactly mellow but I think it still has the colors of autumn.  I used two colors of leaves but Nancy's drawing showed all the leaves being the same color if you want to make a block more historically accurate.

I love this block and it's not hard to make at 6" even though it is 7 units across.

I used a combination of paper piecing templates and cut pieces as shown at the right. The 2 sections with half square triangles are paper pieced.

The little stem is appliqued on with fusible web.  It is very tiny and as she drew it, the end away from the leave was floating.  It was not in any seam!

You make four leaves, add sashing and that's it. You can download the pattern here.  This block can be found in Electric Quilt's BlockBase as #2011 but it needs to be modified to match Nancy's block.

                                                                         

                                                                             Tomorrow-Tennessee Circles

Young Man's Fancy quilt block

Young Man's Fancy quilt block

February 12, 1933-Young Man's Fancy was the block of the day in Nancy Cabot's Chicago Tribune column. She believed it to be a pattern from the 18th century and that it had been handed down with no name change until "a few years ago a young quiltmaker renamed it "Goose in the Pond" but it is most popularly known by it's original title." I wonder who she is talking about.

She says this "quilt requires more than usual amount of work but the alternation of color is most effective." I agree with her assessment that this is a hard block to make.  It has 75 pieces!!

That's some pretty tiny pieces in a 6 inch block! But, I paper pieced it and it went together quite easily.  It's a great one to use up little scraps.

Here are the sections, at the right, that are paper pieced first.


The photo below shows how to finish the piecing by creating rows.

The templates can be found here.

 Tips-

1.  Iron the seams of the little nine patch rows open.
2.  Starching your fabric will make it easier to handle the small pieces.
3.  Color your diagram to make fabric placement easier.

Tomorrow-Autumn Leaves




Here are the blocks for the week-

Barrister's Block

Star and Cross

Beautiful Star

Prairie Queen

Drunkard's Trail

World Without End

World Without End quilt block

February 11, 1933-Nancy Cabot presented the World Without End quilt block pattern in her Chicago Tribune column.  This block got it's "name from the book of common prayer" she tells the reader.  It was to be pieced "without intervening blocks of white.  The points of the stars join in the corners forming a kaleidoscope design" which gives the illusion of a world without end.

Nancy added that this quilt pattern has also been made using just two fabrics with the center square being the same as the background.

You may download templates for the block here.




I made a 6" finished block.  The photo at the right shows how I constructed the block.  I sewed 3 sections as shown  and then sewed those sections together.  I printed my templates on freezer paper. I  ironed each template to the top of a stack of 4 pieces of fabric and rotary cut all 4 pattern pieces at one time. Very easy block!

This block can be found in Electric Quilt"s BlockBase program as #2975d.

Tomorrow-Young Man's Fancy

Drunkard's Trail quilt block

Drunkard's Trail quilt block

February 10, 1933-The Drunkard's Trail quilt block "started out happily from Philadelphia, it's home, under the title the "Friendship Trail" writes Nancy Cabot in the Chicago Tribune eighty years ago toady.  When it reached Boston, it became the Boston Trail because of the winding streets of Boston she speculated.  With the "patches set in a rambling fashion, it does suggest the rather unsteady steps of one who has imbibed too freely."

She also noted that with a simple rearrangement of the blocks, other quilt patterns can be made-Solomon's Puzzle, Cleopatra's Puzzle, Indian Pumpkin Vine, Old Maid's Puzzle, King Tut's Crown, etc.

Nancy Cabot's pattern was drawn using just one patch like this one to the right and rotating it to form two different 4 patch blocks within the larger 4 patch.




I made mine by eliminating some seams.  Here are my two blocks below.

The first block is 4 single blocks but the second block is a square with the quarter circles pieced into the corners.

To make the second block, you need to start with a 3 1/2" square and use the A template from the pattern and mark it and cut it as shown here.  Then sew a B to each corner.

Remember the Snowball Block?  This second block could be made like I made that one, by appliqueing the curved units on.  The pattern for a 6" Drunkard's Trail block can be found here.

A note about yesterday's block, the Prairie Queen block, it is pieced as Nancy Cabot presented it.  Here is a copy from her original article.

Tomorrow- World Without End