Posts Tagged ‘hand quilting’

Here are four hand quilting patterns cut from vintage magazine pages — part of a large box of quilting ephemera recently purchased at a thrift shop. The published patterns gave only a portion of the design, but I have put the pieces together so you can get a better idea of how they look. The first three patterns are  15″, while the feather design is 12″.

To print, click on the images to open a full-sized pdf file. Scroll to the bottom and click on the download button. Open the downloaded file in Acrobat Reader, and select “poster” in the print dialog box. This will allow you to tile print the original pattern size on multiple sheets of letter or legal sized paper, which you can then trim and tape or glue together.

I apologize for the quality of these images — the designs are from 1930s newspapers and were only tiny drawings used as an example of the mail order pattern you could purchase. Unlike the more familiar Nancy Page series quilts that were published full-size in many newspapers, the individual quilt patterns and quilting designs were mail order only.

The images have been cleaned a bit and enlarged, so hopefully you will be able to print and trace the designs. Additional information and a group of more geometric Nancy Page quilting designs is available in an earlier post. Click any image for slideshow.

This large paper folder contains more than the stated 3 dozen transfers, but, other than the design on the cover, I’m not sure they are original to this folder. Five of the patterns are identified as English quilting, and one is identified as Italian (the 5th pattern with double lines). They are quite large at 17″ square.

I’m confused by the whole concept of iron-on transfers for quilting.  I never use iron-on transfers for embroidery, because I think the lines are too thick and it’s tricky to cover them with stitching, so I can’t imagine using them for hand quilting, where the ink would be impossible to cover. At first I thought this might be some special kind of transfer ink that would wash out (pretty unlikely since the transfers are so old), but I tested it, and it’s permanent blue ink.

The designs are pretty, but a couple are very elaborate and look more like embroidery patterns to me. That’s not unusual, since I find that quite a few antique embroidery patterns (especially those intended for braiding and beading) make good quilting patterns (see previous post for 5 examples). Click patterns to enlarge.

I recently purchased folder of large vintage Briggs transfers which are labeled as quilting patterns. As I was looking at the designs, I realized they looked a lot like the large patterns I’ve seen which were intended to decorate cushions. After looking around online for cushion patterns that might also work for hand quilting. I found a rose design that was perfect as is, and four others that I felt would work, but needed a few changes. Now that I’ve added a few elements to a couple, and subtracted some details from the other two, I think these would look wonderful as alternate blocks. Click images to enlarge.

Next, I will clean up the Briggs transfers to share — no changes will be required for them, as they were designed for hand quilting.

The Nancy Page column was syndicated in many national newspapers during the 1930s. Six of these quilting patterns were published full-size, although with only one quarter of the pattern to save space. I put the pieces together to show you the completed design, but the eight original patterns are below, which might be easier to print if you’re going to need a pattern larger than normal printer paper.

Some of these designs were created for the Nancy Page series quilts, and others were associated with one-block quilts. The group is interesting because, as expected, some of them look traditional, but the Ring-on-Ring and Leaf patterns would also look wonderful on a more modern quilt.

An earlier post contains more Nancy Page quilting patterns — small advertisements for mail-away patterns that I enlarged. Click any image to enlarge.

Since I have begun hand quilting my first WIP finish for 2015, I thought it would be appropriate to post some vintage quilting designs. These were published in late 1930s newspapers by Florence LaGanke, using the Nancy Page pseudonym. Unlike the Nancy Page series quilts which were free patterns appearing weekly in a full-sized format, the individual quilt block and quilting patterns were mail order only (3¢ for the pattern, plus a return addressed envelope with a 3¢ stamp).

Because these were actually newspaper ads, the illustrations were tiny and crudely drawn — they were just meant to give you an idea of how the finished product would look. I thought they were unusual, though, so I have tried to clean them up, hoping that someone might actually be able to use these interesting geometric designs. They would be wonderful in an alternate solid color block.

Click any image for slideshow. More Nancy Page quilting patterns are available in this later post.