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Why Not Plan a Small Apartment?
March 08, 1933
Detroit News Quilt History Project; Michigan State University Museum; Susan Salser
Detroit, Michigan, United States
A portion of a Beauty in the Home column including a discussion of a small apartment, letters from Quilt Club Corner members, a coupon for Quilt Club membership, an order form for The Detroit News Wonder Package of over 800 transfer patterns, an advertisement for the Quilt Club radio show, and an advertisement for a leaflet containing the 19th quilt block in the Horoscope quilt.
Beauty in the Home
Why Not Plan a Small Apartment?
by Edith B. Crumb
This department seeks to give assistance to all who are interested in beautifying their homes and will be glad to answer questions pertaining to interior decoration. In order to serve all who, seek advice promptly no more than three problems will be discussed in any one reply. Readers are invited to write to this department as often as they wish, but to limit each letter to three questions. State your question clearly write on only one side of the paper, enclosing a self-addressed, stamped envelope and address Beauty in the Home department, Detroit News. Letters with their answers will be published for the benefit of all homemakers but names and addresses will not be made public.
SECRETARY, sofa, wing chair, armchair, two single chairs and a drop-leaf table—isn’t that a good shopping list to follow if you have in mind the furnishings of a small apartment living room?
If you are one of those who simply cannot pass a book counter without making a purchase and try to justify yourself by believing that it is a big bargain you will have to have a book-case aside from the secretary and so here is another little item to put on the list. It isn’t the biggest task in the world—this getting together the furnishings for a small apartment; and once it has been accomplished, just think of the joy of it! A tiny little household and one within the range of moderate sized purses. So many who would be delighted with a tiny apartment hesitate because they think that prices would be far beyond their reach.
LOW PRICES NOW.
But this is really wrong, for furniture of fine quality is at its lowest price, there were never so many types from which to select, and fabrics for coverings and draperies are simply irresistible.
All you have to have is just a little bit of home-making instinct and the shopping will do the rest for once you have set out to furnish an apartment, you cannot be cured. You simply must go on with it and each article, no matter how small, will be a thing of joy.
If you have a preference for early American type of furnishings, you have one thing especially in your favor. It is possible to use very inexpensive rugs with this—those of the hooked or braided type. And these will do until a little later or you feel that you would like to have a large carpet instead and then the small rugs may be used in a bedroom.
SELECT REPRODUCTIONS.
By the selection of reproductions, you will find that room having a scheme somewhat like this will be possible. The walls and woodwork may be finished in a very light buff and for the floor covering there may be oval braided rug mats in brow, green, blue and black, and these should be of wool.
The glass curtains may be of cream marquisette, finished with ruffles and caught back with ruffled bands and for the over-draperies there may be plain green glazed chintz, finished floor length.
The furniture may be maple (secretary, drop-leaf table, and wing chair), the single chairs in Hitchcock style, finished in black with gold stencil design and the sofa in simple lines, covered in green and cream homespun.
Dark red ground flowered chintz might be used for the covering of the wing chair and such details as lamps and pictures should be very carefully chosen so that they will be in harmony with the scheme in general.
Quilt Club Corner.
I HAVE been an interested member of your “Quilt Corner” since the very first. It probably is natural for, you see, I have only “twenty” quilts on my hands to make. I have a weakness for piecing quilts, and there are so many beautiful patterns, I seldom get through with one before I have started another one.
I have just completed a quilt (even the quilting is done!) that is to be a gift. The “Dresden Plate” pattern attracted my attention very much—so much, in fact, that I cut enough pieces for three quilts, one for each of my daughters, and one for myself.
Later, before I had nay of mine sewed up, I saw a Dresden Plate quilt that had been completed. The design, which I had thought so pretty, seemed too much with the small “corner pieces.”
The idea came to me that I could form these smaller pieces into a circle and make another quilt. This I did, having enough cut from the three quilts. I have twelve pieces in a circle. The corners are plain, except for the design in the quilting. There is an inch wide strip of different size pieces made up of the material which was used in the quilt itself in the border. The very edge is bound with the same small pieces.
I had one block left, so this is being made into a pillow top. I have padded it as I would a quilt, putting a button on it also, and daughter is quilting it in the same design as the quilt is. Of course, there will be a back put onto this quilted top. The side which will be left open for the pillow, I am intending to sew snaps on, thus making simple the much dreaded job of washing the pillow coverings. I, personally, hate to sew the covering closed again, and I hope the recipient of this quilt will appreciate the idea. Both the quilt and the pillow are beautiful. Now that I have carried out my idea to completion, and have discovered how pretty and dainty the smaller block is, I am going to cut down enough of the “regular size” Dresden Plate pieces to make another quilt like the idea I have just finished. We “at our house” loe it and prefer it to the well known and popular “Dresden Plate” pattern.
What a letter! And it is just as mixed up, as far as the explaining is concerned, as it is long. This letter has been on my mind since letters started coming into you with new ideas.
Thanking you for your attention—if I still have it—this far, I am—
Only one of your many members.
MRS. F. K.
You just don’t know how welcome your “breezy” letter will be to the quilt-makers, Mrs. K., and how anyone with 20 quilts to make can possibly find time to write is certainly a puzzle to me.
You have some very clever ideas about “juggling” patterns and in this way your quilts will be very individual.
THIS is my first letter. On Sunday, Feb. 12, you published a letter from Mrs. A. B. asking how to quilt without frames. This is what I have done.
I like a bed blanket (not wool) for the inside because it is easier to work with and washes better. Have the top, back and blanket the same size, put the top and back together with right sides together, put your blanket on the side of your top, pin the edges of the two ends and one side together and stitch. Turn inside out and pin the other so as to keep it in place. If you can, have someone help you stretch each corner. If not, lay it on a table or floor and pin every block two or three times. It is not as satisfactory as frames.
Now you only have one side to finish, so just turn in once and stitch or overcast.
I am quilting my fourth quilt since last July. I do not have any one help me because no two people quilt just exactly the same. That is not very nice to say—is it? But I like to have it the same all over and it could not be with two or three quilters.
I have pieced two Dresden Plates and one is quilted. I put the plates on green material and my daughter uses it as a spread. I make these three yards long and two and one-half yards wide. I draw my own designs for quilting. The one I am quilting now is an embroidered top. I have different designs on this one—stars, half moons, diamonds, hearts and flowers.
It takes me about two weeks to quilt a quilt with the rest of the work in a home. I have so much other sewing—nine dresses, two coats, slips, little boys’ suits, pillow cases with crocheting and hemstitching by machine. I make braided rugs, knitted socks and mittens—all since July. I never sit down and fold my hands. I have something to pick up even if for just a few minutes.
I enjoy reading other quiltmakers’ ideas and if I have any I think anybody would benefit by I am only too glad to tell it.
I hope I may come again some day.
MRS. L. M.
My, what a busy lady! Just to make a quilt or two in six months looks like a large task—but when one thinks of all those quilts, dresses, coats, mittens, rugs, etc., it seems almost more than one could accomplish. The secret of this is in making every moment count—always have something ready to pick up.
I certainly hope you will come again, Mrs. M., and I am sure the quilt-makers will enjoy your letter.
The Detroit News,
Beauty in the Home Department.
Enclosed please find 75c for which I wish you would send me THE DETROIT NEWS WONDER PACKAGE of over 800 transfer patterns.
Name…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Street and Number………………………………………………………………………………
City………………………………………………State……………………………………………………
If you prefer to call for this at The Detroit News Public Service Bureau in the Majestic Building, the General Motors Building, or the Main Office, Second and Lafayette, the price will be but 68 cents. Please do not send coin in letters.
On account of customs regulations, Canadian orders cannot be accepted.
Quilt Club Corner To Be On Radio
WOULD you like to have letters to the Quilt Club Corner read over the radio? If so, write immediately so that they may be here in time for the broadcast which is at 11:45 every Wednesday over WWJ. Listen in for your own and others and then write and tell the Corner how you like this idea.
Horoscope Quilt Pattern No. 19
YOU will be glad to get the leaflet for this week, for the zodiac sign is a very simple one—looks very much like a dart or an arrow, and if you have a hit of checked gingham you will find that it is a very interesting pattern.
To receive this leaflet, just send your request for it to the Beauty in the Home Department, The Detroit News, inclosing with it a self-addressed, stamped envelope. If you prefer you may call for this reprint from The Detroit News Public Service Bureau in either the Majestic Building or the General Motors Building, where it will be given you free of charge.
Beauty in the Home Editor:
Please enter my name as a member of the Beauty in the Home Quilt Club.
Name…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Street and number………………………………………………………………………………
City………………………………………………State……………………………………………………
This enrollment in the Beauty in the Home Quilt Club entitles the member to enter her quilt in the exhibit which will be held after the completion of the series of Horoscope patterns. Date of announcement will be made later.
Anyone who has completed a quilt from any Detroit News pattern will be eligible to become a member and enter this contest.
Courtesy of The Detroit News Archives.
Why Not Plan a Small Apartment?
by Edith B. Crumb
This department seeks to give assistance to all who are interested in beautifying their homes and will be glad to answer questions pertaining to interior decoration. In order to serve all who, seek advice promptly no more than three problems will be discussed in any one reply. Readers are invited to write to this department as often as they wish, but to limit each letter to three questions. State your question clearly write on only one side of the paper, enclosing a self-addressed, stamped envelope and address Beauty in the Home department, Detroit News. Letters with their answers will be published for the benefit of all homemakers but names and addresses will not be made public.
SECRETARY, sofa, wing chair, armchair, two single chairs and a drop-leaf table—isn’t that a good shopping list to follow if you have in mind the furnishings of a small apartment living room?
If you are one of those who simply cannot pass a book counter without making a purchase and try to justify yourself by believing that it is a big bargain you will have to have a book-case aside from the secretary and so here is another little item to put on the list. It isn’t the biggest task in the world—this getting together the furnishings for a small apartment; and once it has been accomplished, just think of the joy of it! A tiny little household and one within the range of moderate sized purses. So many who would be delighted with a tiny apartment hesitate because they think that prices would be far beyond their reach.
LOW PRICES NOW.
But this is really wrong, for furniture of fine quality is at its lowest price, there were never so many types from which to select, and fabrics for coverings and draperies are simply irresistible.
All you have to have is just a little bit of home-making instinct and the shopping will do the rest for once you have set out to furnish an apartment, you cannot be cured. You simply must go on with it and each article, no matter how small, will be a thing of joy.
If you have a preference for early American type of furnishings, you have one thing especially in your favor. It is possible to use very inexpensive rugs with this—those of the hooked or braided type. And these will do until a little later or you feel that you would like to have a large carpet instead and then the small rugs may be used in a bedroom.
SELECT REPRODUCTIONS.
By the selection of reproductions, you will find that room having a scheme somewhat like this will be possible. The walls and woodwork may be finished in a very light buff and for the floor covering there may be oval braided rug mats in brow, green, blue and black, and these should be of wool.
The glass curtains may be of cream marquisette, finished with ruffles and caught back with ruffled bands and for the over-draperies there may be plain green glazed chintz, finished floor length.
The furniture may be maple (secretary, drop-leaf table, and wing chair), the single chairs in Hitchcock style, finished in black with gold stencil design and the sofa in simple lines, covered in green and cream homespun.
Dark red ground flowered chintz might be used for the covering of the wing chair and such details as lamps and pictures should be very carefully chosen so that they will be in harmony with the scheme in general.
Quilt Club Corner.
I HAVE been an interested member of your “Quilt Corner” since the very first. It probably is natural for, you see, I have only “twenty” quilts on my hands to make. I have a weakness for piecing quilts, and there are so many beautiful patterns, I seldom get through with one before I have started another one.
I have just completed a quilt (even the quilting is done!) that is to be a gift. The “Dresden Plate” pattern attracted my attention very much—so much, in fact, that I cut enough pieces for three quilts, one for each of my daughters, and one for myself.
Later, before I had nay of mine sewed up, I saw a Dresden Plate quilt that had been completed. The design, which I had thought so pretty, seemed too much with the small “corner pieces.”
The idea came to me that I could form these smaller pieces into a circle and make another quilt. This I did, having enough cut from the three quilts. I have twelve pieces in a circle. The corners are plain, except for the design in the quilting. There is an inch wide strip of different size pieces made up of the material which was used in the quilt itself in the border. The very edge is bound with the same small pieces.
I had one block left, so this is being made into a pillow top. I have padded it as I would a quilt, putting a button on it also, and daughter is quilting it in the same design as the quilt is. Of course, there will be a back put onto this quilted top. The side which will be left open for the pillow, I am intending to sew snaps on, thus making simple the much dreaded job of washing the pillow coverings. I, personally, hate to sew the covering closed again, and I hope the recipient of this quilt will appreciate the idea. Both the quilt and the pillow are beautiful. Now that I have carried out my idea to completion, and have discovered how pretty and dainty the smaller block is, I am going to cut down enough of the “regular size” Dresden Plate pieces to make another quilt like the idea I have just finished. We “at our house” loe it and prefer it to the well known and popular “Dresden Plate” pattern.
What a letter! And it is just as mixed up, as far as the explaining is concerned, as it is long. This letter has been on my mind since letters started coming into you with new ideas.
Thanking you for your attention—if I still have it—this far, I am—
Only one of your many members.
MRS. F. K.
You just don’t know how welcome your “breezy” letter will be to the quilt-makers, Mrs. K., and how anyone with 20 quilts to make can possibly find time to write is certainly a puzzle to me.
You have some very clever ideas about “juggling” patterns and in this way your quilts will be very individual.
THIS is my first letter. On Sunday, Feb. 12, you published a letter from Mrs. A. B. asking how to quilt without frames. This is what I have done.
I like a bed blanket (not wool) for the inside because it is easier to work with and washes better. Have the top, back and blanket the same size, put the top and back together with right sides together, put your blanket on the side of your top, pin the edges of the two ends and one side together and stitch. Turn inside out and pin the other so as to keep it in place. If you can, have someone help you stretch each corner. If not, lay it on a table or floor and pin every block two or three times. It is not as satisfactory as frames.
Now you only have one side to finish, so just turn in once and stitch or overcast.
I am quilting my fourth quilt since last July. I do not have any one help me because no two people quilt just exactly the same. That is not very nice to say—is it? But I like to have it the same all over and it could not be with two or three quilters.
I have pieced two Dresden Plates and one is quilted. I put the plates on green material and my daughter uses it as a spread. I make these three yards long and two and one-half yards wide. I draw my own designs for quilting. The one I am quilting now is an embroidered top. I have different designs on this one—stars, half moons, diamonds, hearts and flowers.
It takes me about two weeks to quilt a quilt with the rest of the work in a home. I have so much other sewing—nine dresses, two coats, slips, little boys’ suits, pillow cases with crocheting and hemstitching by machine. I make braided rugs, knitted socks and mittens—all since July. I never sit down and fold my hands. I have something to pick up even if for just a few minutes.
I enjoy reading other quiltmakers’ ideas and if I have any I think anybody would benefit by I am only too glad to tell it.
I hope I may come again some day.
MRS. L. M.
My, what a busy lady! Just to make a quilt or two in six months looks like a large task—but when one thinks of all those quilts, dresses, coats, mittens, rugs, etc., it seems almost more than one could accomplish. The secret of this is in making every moment count—always have something ready to pick up.
I certainly hope you will come again, Mrs. M., and I am sure the quilt-makers will enjoy your letter.
The Detroit News,
Beauty in the Home Department.
Enclosed please find 75c for which I wish you would send me THE DETROIT NEWS WONDER PACKAGE of over 800 transfer patterns.
Name…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Street and Number………………………………………………………………………………
City………………………………………………State……………………………………………………
If you prefer to call for this at The Detroit News Public Service Bureau in the Majestic Building, the General Motors Building, or the Main Office, Second and Lafayette, the price will be but 68 cents. Please do not send coin in letters.
On account of customs regulations, Canadian orders cannot be accepted.
Quilt Club Corner To Be On Radio
WOULD you like to have letters to the Quilt Club Corner read over the radio? If so, write immediately so that they may be here in time for the broadcast which is at 11:45 every Wednesday over WWJ. Listen in for your own and others and then write and tell the Corner how you like this idea.
Horoscope Quilt Pattern No. 19
YOU will be glad to get the leaflet for this week, for the zodiac sign is a very simple one—looks very much like a dart or an arrow, and if you have a hit of checked gingham you will find that it is a very interesting pattern.
To receive this leaflet, just send your request for it to the Beauty in the Home Department, The Detroit News, inclosing with it a self-addressed, stamped envelope. If you prefer you may call for this reprint from The Detroit News Public Service Bureau in either the Majestic Building or the General Motors Building, where it will be given you free of charge.
Beauty in the Home Editor:
Please enter my name as a member of the Beauty in the Home Quilt Club.
Name…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Street and number………………………………………………………………………………
City………………………………………………State……………………………………………………
This enrollment in the Beauty in the Home Quilt Club entitles the member to enter her quilt in the exhibit which will be held after the completion of the series of Horoscope patterns. Date of announcement will be made later.
Anyone who has completed a quilt from any Detroit News pattern will be eligible to become a member and enter this contest.
Courtesy of The Detroit News Archives.
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Michigan State University Museum Michigan Quilt Project
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Collection
Detroit News Quilt History Project
Salser, Susan
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Essay
Mary Gasperik and the Detroit...
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