Doves in the Window quilt block

Doves in the Window

July 8, 1933-The Doves in the Window or Four Birds quilt block dates "back to the early eighties and is a product of the New England states," wrote Nancy Cabot about her block of the day eighty years ago.

The Doves in the Window block is both a bird design and a star design though it may be a little hard to see in my block.

The birds are formed by color placement within an eight point star that is composed all of diamonds.

There's an article about the Doves in the Window block here where you can see the drawing as Nancy Cabot presented it in the Chicago Tribune. It shows the eight point star construction.





I was not able to find any blocks or quilts constructed the way Nancy showed her block. Her "wings" are longer.  This antique quilt at Max and Louise Pattern Co. is an example of shorter "wings."

In making my 6" block, I eliminated several of the diamond pieces.  It seemed silly to me to make the bird body from four diamonds sewn together so I made one larger diamond. These are the parts I used for my paper piecing pattern-

The section in the upper right hand corner shows the pieces needed to make the parts shown in the upper left hand corner. So, you are basically making two different diamonds that each have two paper pieced units in them.  You make eight diamonds and set them together with triangles and squares which is shown at the bottom of the photo. The block does require set-in or "y" seams but it goes together quite easily if you make sure to mark your 1/4" seam and just sew up to it.

You can download my Doves in the Window pattern here.

Tomorrow-Sunflower

Indiana Rose quilt block

Indiana Rose

July 10, 1933-"A patriotic daughter of Indiana designed and pieced the "Indiana Rose" quilt pattern,"  wrote Nancy Cabot of her pattern of the day.

She noted that printed fabrics were used in the original Indiana Rose quilts and continued to be used in the 1930's. "It is doubtful if the pattern would be recognized if made up in plain colors," she felt.

This is one of few patterns that I have not been able to find any information on.  Maybe it is known by another name or was never popular?

Since it is an applique block, I didn't make it.

Tomorrow-St. Louis Star

Sunflower quilt block

Sunflower

July 9, 1933- "Sunflower" Is Artistic Addition to Collection of Quilt Enthusiast was the title of Nancy Cabot's column in the Chicago Tribune on this day.

"The pattern represents the flower as it is when the seeds have formed and the inner petals have become lighter in color.  Thus a distinct pattern is framed in a darker tone," she wrote in explanation of the  block.  And that was all she had to say about the Sunflower block.

However, you can see her pattern here which has a little more written on it than she wrote in today's article which once again makes me believe she wrote about this pattern more than once. She wrote her column daily for many years which means well over a thousand columns so I think it's likely that she repeated some of the blocks.  Time will tell!

Since this is an applique block, I did not make it.



A Sunflower quilt made according to her pattern might look like this-

Nancy's Sunflower block can be found in Electric Quilt's Blockbase program as #3459.

Tomorrow-Indiana Rose

Flying Squares quilt block

Flying Squares

July 7, 1933-The Flying Squares quilt block comes from the midwest, "claimed as native by Illinois, Kentucky, and Indiana," wrote Nancy Cabot in her Chicago Tribune column.

The pattern was relatively new in 1933 she said. She felt it was very easy to piece even for beginners.

I agree it's an easy block to sew but it's also a five patch block which is difficult to rotary cut when trying to make a 6" block.  Each square would need to be 1 1/5" plus 1/2" for seam allowance.

I found it much easier to paper piece it.  You can download the pattern I used here.

There is an antique copy of the Flying Squares pattern that was written by the Ladies Art Company in 1895 here. It's shown as a two color quilt and that's how Nancy Cabot showed it also. I decided to make mine two color but scrappy!

The paper piece pattern pieces are like shown below-

The Flying Squares block can also be found in Electric Quilt's Blockbase program as #2581.

I didn't find an old quilt made using this pattern but I did find this quilt from the Sutured for a Living blog. I love the scrappiness of this Flying Squares quilt.  The quilter didn't use the background fabric in every other square like it had been shown to be made originally.  I like this look even better!

Tomorrow-Doves in the Window