A Pattern Timeline

by Steffani McChesney

I have always loved history so that love naturally moved over to join seamlessly with my love of quilting. (Sorry about the bad pun, I just couldn’t resist, but I knew you would understand.) There are many aspects of history to be found in a quilt such as the fabric used in the quilt, the style of the quilt, and the pattern used in the quilt. These aspects are all important, particularly if you are going to make a reproduction quilt.

With all the reproduction fabric from all periods of quilt history being produced today, making a reproduction quilt is pretty easy. You do have to do your research, though. Besides having all the great reproduction fabric available, we modern day quilters are lucky to have lots of research tools at hand in the form of books, libraries, and the Internet.  Speaking of the Internet, I was surfing through all kinds of quilt-related websites and found a timeline for the most popular patterns used in quilts since Colonial days here in America.

Starting in 1726 the most popular quilt pattern was the Mariner’s Compass. And you thought it all started with Jinny Byer and Judy Mathieson. This is not surprising considering that we were a seafaring nation. After the turn of the 19th Century the pattern of choice was the humble Nine Patch staring around 1808. This evolved in to the more complex Irish Chain around 1814.

By 1817 everyone was making Grandmother’s Flower Gardens, which to us early 21st  Century quilters usually evokes the Thirties with all those cheery little pastel prints. Wanting more of a challenge, I guess, the Feathered Star became popular in about 1830; along with it’s slightly less complicated cousin the Lone Star. All I can say is those ladies must have been some kinds of gluttons for punishment. I like both those patterns and will probably make them both before I’m done, but I am very happy that we have modern techniques such as paper piecing and strip piecing to insure a good result. Those big star patterns are tricky.

In 1840 the Pieced Houses patterns became popular. I wonder if it became popular because more children were going to school. The block has always reminded me of a one-room schoolhouse.

Twenty years later, in 1850, Basket Quilts became all the rage. This is another pattern I have always associated with the Thirties. Even though examples of the Log Cabin pattern have been around since the days of the ancient Egyptians, it became really popular in America in 1869 after the Civil War.

By 1875 the country was interested in quilt patterns depicting Ocean Waves and Pieced Trees. Too bad Thangles hadn’t been invented yet. All those triangles would have been a lot easier to make if they had.

In 1885 Fans were decorating crazy quilts and bed quilts. Menswear even contributed to quilt patterns. By 1898 Bow Tie blocks were widely used in quilts. Some of the prettiest, most feminine quilts were made in the 1920s, one of the most popular being the often intimidating Wedding Ring quilt, another quilt that is a lot easier to make with modern quilting techniques.

After the 1920s quilting became much less popular as a handicraft except among rural women who quilted for both necessity and for the joy of it. But you can’t keep a great art down.  Quilting, as we know it today, blossomed again in the Seventies with the renewed desire for beautiful handmade objects and has never looked back.