Classic patterns made modern – Rocky Road to Kansas

June 2023

Covering Quilts

Classic patterns made modern – Rocky Road to Kansas

by Sandra Starley

 

Last month, I wrote about the origins of the classic antique quilt pattern, Rocky Road To Kansas. While it sounds like a design dating back to the pioneer days of the 1850s, it actually hails from the late 1800s – definitely, after the railroad system had made travel less rocky to Kansas and beyond. It was most popular in the 1880s and ‘90s and on through the 1940s. While not a rare antique pattern, it is not very common.

I’ve long loved the large scale and scrappy purple Rocky Road to Kansas made by my great-grandmother, Isabelle Rogers, in the 1930s in rural Utah. She home-dyed cotton fabric salvaged, recycled, or upcycled from flour and sugar sacks for the purple background and the yellow backing fabric. You can’t go wrong with purple and bright yellow! She used muslin foundations as a base for her crazy piecing. Some of her triangle points have just two pieces and others have more than a dozen. This variety of piecing and different scale/size of pieces adds a lot of interest and character to the classic pattern. It is a great way to use scraps or leftover fabrics, but it is perfect for fun new fabrics, too.

Fast forward to March, when I needed to make a project for a quilt challenge. I jumped at the chance to recreate her quilt using a new collection of Island Batiks featuring blues and greens and the much-beloved purple in her honor. I love working in small scale, so I chose to remake her design using little three-inch block sections that join to make six-inch blocks. Quite a difference from her blocks that measure 15 inches. She pieced her blocks in strips and strings and random piecing, I followed printed paper foundations for my blocks. To make my version less formal and more folksy like the inspiration quilt, each block has four different units, placed in different positions. It was a joy to remake the quilt and honor my great-grandmother whom I never had the privilege of meeting. I feel like I always make a bond or connection with the original quilter when I recreate an antique or vintage work, and this one was extra special.

The modern quilting movement has focused on blocks with simple, clean lines and improvisational piecing, so the Rocky Road to Kansas fits right in.

a rocky road quilt

Generations of Rocky Road Quilts

Generations of Rocky Roads: Left – Isabelle Rogers (1935). Right top – Donna Starley. Bottom – Sandra Starley. Image courtesy of the author

Contemporary versions are often made with neutral solid backgrounds (especially grays) and either sewn on paper foundations or strip pieced. My sister Donna made a modern miniature version of Belle’s quilt a few years ago in black and pink. It really is a cool and timeless design. Both Donna and I used foundation paper piecing, but other techniques can be employed. Many people use strip piecing for a more regimented appearance, while others use crazy piecing for a wilder freeform look.

The pattern is very versatile and looks great whether sewn with large or small blocks, light or dark grounds, or traditional prints or modern solids. Don’t shy away from the design because you dislike the dreaded Y or inset seams. Most quilters now make the pattern in square blocks, which totally eliminates the inset seams. Earlier makers like my great-grandmother were often piecing by hand (or hand and machine) and were comfortable with that difficult piecing. With new user-friendly methods and modernized color schemes, this pattern is as appealing today as when it caught the fancy of designers and quilters more than 100 years ago.

Sandra Starley is nationally certified quilt appraiser, quilt historian, and avid antique quilt collector. She travels throughout the U.S. presenting talks on antique quilt history, fabric dating classes and trunk shows as well as quilting classes. Learn more at utahquiltappraiser.blogspot.com. Send your comments and quilt questions to SandraStarley@outlook.com

Classic Patterns: Rocky Road to Kansas

May 2023

Covering Quilts

Classic Patterns: Rocky Road to Kansas

by Sandra Starley

 

Quilt names : ‘Rocky Road to Kansas,’ ‘Texas Tears,’ and ‘Rocky Road to California’,

It’s a quilt name that stirs up images of wagons full of bonneted prairie ladies busily sewing while bumping across the endless Western frontier. “The hardships endured by the sturdy pioneers were constantly in the minds of the early American quilters and inspired many (quilt) names. ‘Rocky Road to Kansas,’ ‘Texas Tears,’ and ‘Rocky Road to California’, (all) have a great interest as they reveal to us the thoughts of our great-grandmothers over their quilting frames.” — Marie Webster, 1916. We now know this nostalgic image of wagons of quilters is simply charming fiction. The Kansas Quilt Documentation Project found no proof that “any pioneers taking the road to Kansas when it was truly rocky made (this) string quilt since the pattern appeared after railroads facilitated trips to Kansas.

The initial publication of a string-pieced Rocky Road to Kansas quilt pattern was not until the Ladies Art Company catalog in 1895. This was the first mail-order catalog of quilt blocks and included almost 300 patterns. Obviously, descriptive names like “X Block” and “String Star” are not dreamy and do not sell quilt patterns in the same way, so this romantic myth of “Quilts of The West” continues to roll on.

The main sections of the pattern involve easy sewing of strips, strings, or random pieces. But the background pieces were traditionally inset with Y seams, which can be tricky. Most quilters now split the background diamonds in half for simple piecing. For a more formal look, strip piecing can be used. One sews cut strips together and then slices the strip segments into four triangles or Vs for each block. Another name for this pattern is The Kite Block, first published in The Ohio Farmer (1897). It features four strip-pieced kites flying nose to nose (looking at the pattern from a different direction). I found a charming small-scale version of this pattern, circa 1890 from Lancaster County, PA, with red and Lancaster Blue centers, a yellow framing row, and a Double Pink background. This careful color placement and straight line or strip piecing in some areas help control what could be a very wild quilt.

a rocky road quilt

A Rocky Road Quilt

An example of a Rocky Road quilt. (Image courtesy of the author)

Early quilters often used string piecing for this pattern, adding fabric strings (small strips or pieces) to a muslin, scrap, or recycled fabric base. Newspapers or other papers were used later for the foundation. In The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt (1935), Hall and Kretsinger suggested their method for creating the pattern: “The four-pointed star is made of irregular shaped pieces sewed together ‘Crazy’ fashion, then cut into points.” Creating your own pieced fabric to make blocks is a great example of “everything old is new again” and is now called crumb quilting, improvisational quilting, or simply scrap quilting. In fact, one of the big advocates of this method, Victoria Findlay Wolfe, notes that her 15 Minutes of Play method for creating a scrap “made fabric” is a reinvention of an old technique.

My great-grandmother Isabelle Rogers used the Hall & Kretsinger guidelines when creating her scrappy 1930s quilt in rural Utah. She used muslin foundations as a base for her crazy piecing. Finally, standard paper or foundation piecing can be used to construct the block. This method involves following a printed pattern rather than doing the random or crazy piecing described by Hall. More about grandmother’s quilt and the techniques I used to recreate it next month.

Sandra Starley is nationally certified quilt appraiser, quilt historian, and avid antique quilt collector. She travels throughout the U.S. presenting talks on antique quilt history, fabric dating classes and trunk shows as well as quilting classes. Learn more at utahquiltappraiser.blogspot.com. Send your comments and quilt questions to SandraStarley@outlook.com

Puff Quilts are back – Part 2

April 2023

Covering Quilts

Puff Quilts are back – Part Two

by Sandra Starley

 

Those puffy, pillowy quilts from the 1970s are back and better than ever. Puff, pillow, biscuit, or bubble quilts are generally extra puffy or dimensional. There are myriad methods of making them. The big news is, they really can be fun and easy. I just made my first one along with my fellow Island Batik Fabric Brand Ambassadors.

The Puff Quilt Challenge

Each month we receive a creative quilting assignment, and for February 2023, we were to create a Puff quilt using a new fabric collection. Interestingly, out of 25 seasoned quilters, only three of the group had any experience making puff quilts, and for one quilter, that was 20 years ago. Many of us were a bit nervous of cutting and sewing a boatload of little puffy pillows, but we all created amazing puff quilts. While most of the group followed two standard methods, several quilters spurred by the challenge tweaked the standard or came up with their own methods. To see all 25 quilts, visit islandbatik.com/end-of-all-puffed-up-blog-hop

No Individual Pillows but Still Stuffed

Preeti Harris and I are both a bit rebellious and didn’t want to make lots of pillows, and didn’t like pleats or super puffiness. Preeti experimented and created her own no- pillow method. She sewed her top and then tacked batting to the back of every square. She added backing, machine quilted (stitched in the ditch), and bound her quilt. I found a no-pillow method in Sunset’s Quilting Patchwork & Applique (1981), which I improved by reducing the batting by 2/3rds by folding strips. I sewed a regular top and added a backing fabric without batting. The key is to stitch in the seam between your middle horizontal rows (if you have 12 rows, stitch between row six and seven) and then in all the vertical rows. This creates channels for stuffing, but that first seam means only reaching down half of the quilt. Stuff the row next to the center seam and stitch the row closed. Stuff the next row; repeat until all rows are done. Add a standard binding, turn the back to front, or add a facing. Suzy Webster cut and pieced a strippy top, added a back, and sewed in the seams to create tubes. She stuffed them with the aid of a dowel and sewed the edges closed.

Detail of Seven Sisters quilt

All Puffed Up

See 25 pillowy puff quilts from Sandra’s group on its blog at islandbatik.com/end-of-all-puffed-up-blog-hop. (Image courtesy of The All Puffed Up blog)

 

Individual Pillows, Sewn in Rows, Stuffed, Backed, and Tied

Most of our group used the more traditional method. It can be found at Lo and Behold Stitchery and other tutorials. Make pillow units by cutting squares of the top fabrics and smaller squares of the backing. Sew the top square to the backing on three sides, creating tucks on the top. Leave the fourth side open for stuffing. Unstuffed pillows are sewn in rows. The first row is stuffed with batting and sewn closed.

Another unstuffed row is sewn to the first, stuffed, and closed. Repeat until all rows are joined and stuffed. Add a backing and depending on climate, more batting. Many people hand tied at each intersection to secure the backing. Several of our group folded the backing to the front to create a self-binding to finish their quilts. This method creates a more poofy, traditional looking puff quilt and the group enjoyed making these

I hope you are inspired to try making a puff quilt. They are perfect for cuddling, and kids and pets love them.
Happy quilting!

 

Sandra Starley is nationally certified quilt appraiser, quilt historian, and avid antique quilt collector. She travels throughout the U.S. presenting talks on antique quilt history, fabric dating classes and trunk shows as well as quilting classes. Learn more at utahquiltappraiser.blogspot.com. Send your comments and quilt questions to SandraStarley@outlook.com

Have a puffy new year! Puff or pillow quilts – Part One

March 2023

Covering Quilts

Have a puffy new year! Puff or pillow quilts – Part One

by Sandra Starley

 

Everything old is new again. I blame A$AP Rocky (Mr. Rihanna) for the revival of the puff quilt. He wore a reworked vintage puff quilt on the red carpet at the Met Gala in September 2021 (recrafting done by Zak Foster). He combined two of the heydays of puff quilt, the 1970s/’80s and today into one garment. But seriously, puff quilts are super popular now and have a long though intermittent history as well.

What is a puff quilt?

A puff or biscuit or pillow quilt is generally composed of many individual little pleated and stuffed quilt squares that are joined to create a quilt. A lot of stuffing or batting is involved, and puffiness is a key to the design. These quilts are usually extra puffy and 3-D compared to regular quilts and tend to be an intense and tedious endeavor with lots of cutting and wrangling the super stuffed pieces. I have found an easier method. Much more on that in Part Two.

History

It is believed that the earliest version of the puff quilt was part of the fancy show quilt fad in the late 1880s and ‘90s (the era of the silk and satin crazy quilts). The stuffed quilts of that era, like their crazy quilt companions, were made of fancy silks, satins, and velvets and used to decorate pianos and table tops and pillows. They were made for ornamentation rather than to be used on beds. Quilt historian Barbara Brackman found that the oldest dated version of the Victorian era Biscuit quilts was a “Raised Patchwork” quilt, dated 1882. Also, during this time period there were gathered circle quilts called Suffolk Puffs made in England and Australia. Suffolk Puffs were sometimes filled with wool and so were similar to American puff quilts. Without the stuffing, they would be like the American yo-yo (gathered circle) quilt, which was popular in the 1920s-‘40s. Yo-yos and Suffolk Puff Quilts had a revival again in the 1970s and ‘80s along with another dimensional quilt style called Cathedral Windows.

True puff quilts were not seen much again until the 1960s and the quilting revival of the 1970s and into the 1980s. During this time, they were often packed with the newly available polyester stuffing, which was perfect for adding extra poof or volume. In that era, they were also filled with stockings/nylons as recycling and reusing was quite fashionable. Quilting fabrics weren’t easy to find then, and puff quilts were made with cotton, cotton/polyester blends, and even polyester double-knit fabrics. Many of these quilts were extremely heavy. Ruffles along the edges were popular, too.

 

Detail of Seven Sisters quilt

Pillow Quilt

Rainbow Garden Trip Around the World Quilt, 2023, Sandra Starley, fabrics provided by Island Batik. (Image courtesy of the author)

 

Current fashions

There has been a resurgence in puff quilts in the 2010s and especially in the 2020s. A fondness for retro or boho chic and vintage style has put puff or pillow quilts back in style. They are now made in quilters cotton fabric and even in specialty textured fabrics like Minky and Cuddledown. Tutorials abound on YouTube and blogs for making puff quilts in a variety of different techniques. One can spend hours viewing and contemplating which is the best way to make a puff quilt (just do a quick search and you’ll see endless options). This month I’ve been working with a group making puff quilts and I will share some of the wisdom I have gathered along my journey of puff quilting with you. I think I have discovered a great method and cannot wait to share it with you in my next column.

Happy puffy quilting.

Sandra Starley is nationally certified quilt appraiser, quilt historian, and avid antique quilt collector. She travels throughout the U.S. presenting talks on antique quilt history, fabric dating classes and trunk shows as well as quilting classes. Learn more at utahquiltappraiser.blogspot.com. Send your comments and quilt questions to SandraStarley@outlook.com

Make your ancestors proud – Help keep quilt history alive!

Make your ancestors proud – Help keep quilt history alive!

February 2023

Covering Quilts

Make your ancestors proud – Help keep quilt history alive!

by Sandra Starley

 

Preserving quilt history is easy to do and so important.

The first step: share your quilt story with friends and family. Tell friends about your quilt history journey. Share your vintage and antique quilt finds with people. Post or write about new quilt history books or even old ones (you never know which ones people may have missed). An added benefit is that you may find a few resources that you have not seee first step:n before or ones you have forgotten. Also, this is a good reminder to revisit old buddies on your bookshelf. You will be surprised about what treasures you will find on a second look through with more experienced eyes. Starting discussions about quilt history topics on social media is a great way to share your love of antique and current quilt making. You will likely make new quilty friends and learn along the way. And again, I would strongly recommend joining the American Quilt Study Group, the nation’s premiere quilt study organization www.americanquiltstudygroup.org

Second step: Do not forget that tomorrow’s quilt history is being made today. Now is the time to document and label your own quilts (ones you have made). It is also important to document any quilts that you collect too. A label should have basic information like the year the quilt was made (or years), the name of maker and the name of recipient if the quilt was given away or donated. Also include the title or name of the quilt and why it was made (a special occasion, fabric challenge, experiment?). It is also good to note the pattern or design information (was it an original design, a commercial pattern, or a combination of both). For an antique quilt – document as much of that previous list as you can based on known information or educated inferences. Then take some photographs of your quilts, at least a full photo and a few close-ups. Finally, create a paper trail: write up a brief synopsis of the label information along with photographs to properly record your quilting history and collection. It is a good idea to keep these records in a separate location from your quilts.

Detail of Seven Sisters quilt

Quilt Top made in Red Hill, PA

A quilt top made in Red Hill, PA, in 1911 by Gladys (9) and Earl (5) Balmer, from the Starley Quilt Collection. Documented with the Quilt Alliance. (Image courtesy of the author)

Third step: share your quilt making story with the public through the wonderful resources of the Quilt Alliance; see them and join them at www.quiltalliance.org. The Quilt Alliance offers several easy ways to document your quilt story. First is the quick and easy “Go Tell It!” project that involves a simple formula for sharing and saving quilt history. “One quilt, one person, one camera + three minutes = another quilt story saved.” Just follow that recipe (see more details on their website) and record the story of your favorite quilt for future generations. They also have the Quilters Save Our Stories (QSOS) that is a longer format interview option. Further your preservation efforts by having a few of your quilts put on the national quilt history database of the Quilt Index www.quiltindex.org. The Quilt Index is a public archive, and anyone can submit quilts to the site. They have recorded more than 87,000 quilts and they have incredible research resources for you to explore.

Fourth step: Speaking of exploring, check your parents’ attic or grandma’s cedar chest and see if there are any family quilts that need to be preserved and documented. Ask family members if there are any old quilts hidden away. You never know what quilt treasures may be discovered from your own family. Start searching and learning now; a perfect way to start the new year.

Sandra Starley is nationally certified quilt appraiser, quilt historian, and avid antique quilt collector. She travels throughout the U.S. presenting talks on antique quilt history, fabric dating classes and trunk shows as well as quilting classes. Learn more at utahquiltappraiser.blogspot.com. Send your comments and quilt questions to SandraStarley@outlook.com