December 9, 1933

Detroit News Quilt History Project; Michigan State University Museum; Susan Salser

Detroit, Michigan, United States

A Quilt Club Corner column including letters from Quilt Club Corner members.

Quilt Club Corner.
Silks, Satins and Velvets Were Used for This Quilt
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.

YOU have seen several styles of putting the Log Cabin blocks together, and here is still another one. Don’t they seem to be endless, though? In the other quilts the rows were shown as going around and around on the diagonal and in this one you see just light and dark diagonal rows.

In a way this quilt is a combination of the Log Cabin and the Crazy Quilt, for it is made of silks, satins and velvets, and in each square is a small embroidered bouquet. You will also notice that instead of the regulation Log Cabin block which starts in the center with a small square and has graduating strips to fill it out, this has the square in one corner.

All kinds of feather-stitching and briar-stitching have been used to cover the seams where the strips were connected.

This quilt was given one of the ribbon awards at The Detroit News Quilt Exhibit and was entered by Mrs. Ethel Strassburg, Route No. 3, Monroe, Mich.; and it also won the first prize at the Bradford and Newberry fair at Bradford, New Hampshire in 1802. The certificate of the 1802 award is still in place on the quilt, when makes it a very interesting one.

I want to thank all of you who are writing in and helping to keep the Quilt Club Corner going so beautifully and I know that many more will write in. I realize that right now is a very busy time, but I don’t want you to be too neglectful of the Corner for it must go on now that it is started and it “just eats letters” and is a very hungry column.

Why don’t some of the little girls write in? there hasn’t been a word from any of them since the Contest and I should not like to think that they had decided to drop quilt-making. I know that Edna Marie Kennedy has started a Trip Around the World and little Mary Catherine Pinney was looking for another pattern that she could start on. I don’t know about Winnifred Kennedy. She worked pretty hard to get that quilt finished and seemed quite willing to get along without sewing for a while.

Wesley Morton, the little boy from Belleville who exhibited a quilt and won a ribbon award, said that it was his second quilt but that he did not want to make any more.

I wish that each one of you would drop a few lines to the column just as soon as possible.

Wants New Pattern.
I fully believe the Exhibit was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone. Such an elaborate display of colors and workmanship was beyond any description we could give it.

Hurry with the new patterns as I am so quilt-minded that I can hardly wait. The series of patterns is what interested me and with the single patterns everyone will be satisfied. I hope I enjoy making the next quilt as well as I did the Horoscope.

I had the loveliest chat with Gran Friday and Sunday and isn’t she a grand little lady? I am sure she enjoyed seeing the quilts. The antique quilts were especially interesting. How fine the stitching was! Come on members, do your bit toward keeping the Corner going!
MRS. ARTHUR FISHER
Romulus, Mich.

I do hope, Mrs. Fisher, that everyone enjoyed the Exhibit as thoroughly as you did; and I am sure that the next quilt will be as pleasing as the Horoscope—in fact, more so.

Everyone writes in about Gran and I do hope that she is reading the Corner every night so that she will see the messages.

We can all take lessons from those antique quilts. Don’t you think so?

Please keep writing as often as ever, Mrs. Fisher, and do your part toward keeping the Corner going.

Wonders About Flowers.
I have been wanting to write ever since the quilting party. It was wonderful, wasn’t it? I went the first night, very early, and stayed until very late. I just hated to leave. I wish we could have one every year.

Do you know that I never thought I would see so many Flower Garden quilts. Some of the flowers looked so real one was almost tempted to smell them. I had a complete set of the Flower Garden patterns and made a quilt, but I noticed that some of the women had different flowers in their quilts. I noticed the pansy, nasturtium, poinsettia and a half-opened rose. I wonder if you know where I could get them.
MRS. M. TAYLOR,
2695 Honorah,
Detroit, Mich.

Next year if there is a party you must plan to come every day, Mrs. Taylor, for I am sure that anyone who enjoys looking at quilts as much as you do would find something new at every turn.

A good many wrote to ask if other flowers might be added to their quilts in order to make them larger; and some did not like the holly and substituted another design for that, so in every case the added flower was original and only the ladies who made them could help you with this problem.

Be sure to write often, Mrs. Taylor, for everyone is looking for more letters in the Corner.

Mrs. C. Very Curious.
I thought I would drop a line to the Corner to say how much I enjoyed the Exhibit. It was the most wonderful display that I have ever seen. I could not make up my mind as to which I liked best. I read that we are to have more quilt patterns soon, so I am very curious to know what kind of patterns they will be. Please don’t keep us waiting too long or we may die of curiosity.
MRS. GEORGE CHAMBERS,
18802 W. Jefferson,
Detroit, Mich.

Wasn’t it fun to try to decide upon a quilt you might take at the Exhibit if you were given your choice? But it was so very difficult, too.

I am sorry that you have to wait so long for the new patterns, but I am still in the midst of details having to do with the winding up of the Quilt Show and until that is entirely completed I can not spare the time to prepare new patterns. But when they start they will come fast enough for you, I am sure.

Courtesy of The Detroit News Archives.

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