The Galaxy Quilt

 

The Galaxy Quilt Tulsa Tribune Tulsa, Oklahoma, Sun, 20 Nov 1932

A New and Different Quilt for Trib Readers Next Week

“By a queer quirk of mathematics the originator of the Galaxy quilt has arrived at 48 blocks in which the four colors, used in the quilt, are arranged in a different design in each block.”

The Tulsa Tribune 22 Nov 1932, Tue, Page 2 – New Quilt Starts Sunday
“Directions will be given daily … It is to be a patch-work quilt … In the Galaxy quilt, each piece is a single solid color two inches square. … There will be 48 blocks in the quilt and the entire quilt will be approximately 78 by 98 inches in size.”

The Tulsa Tribune 23 Nov 1932, Wed, Page 4 – Colors in Galaxy Quilt
“It is suggested that the Galaxy Quilt design be worked out in flame red, ultramarine blue, apple green and golden yellow”

The Tulsa Tribune 25 Nov 1932, Fri, Page 10 – Unusual Design of the New Tribune Quilt
“Each day The Tribune will publish a small chart showing the color combination in one of the blocks. Each color used in the quilt will be known by a number and always 1 will stand for flame red, 2 for ultra marine blue, 3 for apple green and 4 for golden yellow. … Each color piece to be cut two and one-quarter of an inch. The quarter of an inch is to be used for the seam and the block will be two inches square when sewed to the other pieces. Each block will measure eight inches square when finished and be joined to the other blocks by a two inch strip. … It will require two yards of material 36 inches wide, of each color in the quilt.”  [Note if a standard one-quarter inch seam allowance is used, the squares need to be two-and-one-half inches square.]

The Tulsa Tribune 27 Nov 1932, Sun, Page 1 – Galaxy Quilt
“Hereafter there will be a block a day for 48 days, instead of a block a week as formerly in The Tribune.” [Note, some days were missed here and there, so took longer that 48 days.]

Block One appeared on Sunday, 27Nov1932 and indicated that the joining strip should be egg shell in color and joining square white. The next day, Blocks One and Two were given with the color mapping numbers. Copyright 1932 Forrest Rees appears with the illustration. Charts for previous blocks could be had by sending a self-addressed stamped envelope and one cent for each desired chart.

Block Chart for 24 is missing – Newspapers.com does not have the 23Dec1932 edition, which I suspect the design is in.

The last chart for Block 48 was published on 22Jan1933. Several years later, in 1941, a reader was looking to buy the patterns for the Galaxy Quilt.

The Galaxy Series - Tulsa Tribune, Nov 1931 - Jan 1933

Published in the Peggy Lynn column, copyright by Forrest Rees

With such a simple, but complex design in terms of keeping track of the block orientation, I thought I would look to see it there were any quilts made using the pattern. Searching for Galaxy Quilt did not yield anything, but searching the Quilt Index for Oklahoma quilts yielded a match. And what a match it is. The quilt is upside down per the pattern, but the maker make it very truthfully to the design, even to the colors for the borders. I think mathematically there can be many more block designs, but 48 made a good sized quilt. I mapped the block charts to the quilt - they are an exact match, the maker even used the color recommendations for the sashing and borders.

The Galaxy Quilt Found in the Quilt Index

From the Quilt Index:   https://quiltindex.org//view/?type=fullrec&kid=38-36-1177

QUILT INDEX RECORD 38-36-1177

Finished quilt: 72 x 91 [Versus 78 by 98 given in the pattern]

Predominant Color(s): Red; Blue; Green; [and yellow]

Block pattern: 16 patch; Number of quilt blocks: 48

Size of quilt blocks: 8 inches; Sashing width: 2 inches

Quilt maker's name: Palmer, Louella Starr Stalker

Where the quilt was made, Collinsville, OK

The Peggy Lynn Column was written by Tribune Staff. The column started in the early 1920s. It is one of a couple of papers that adopted other syndicated columns and quilt patterns and replaced the names with their own – Peggy Lynn. The Nancy Page column (Laganke/Kerven) was adopted in February of 1928 with the familiar image used to introduce the column, but with Introducing Peggy Lynn in the Daily papers. Previously the Peggy Lynn column was on Sundays. The Nancy Page Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt was introduced by Peggy Lynn. No mention of Nancy Page, LaGanke or Kerven. They did have one slipup that I found that mentioning getting a Nancy Page leaflet, usually Peggy Lynn was substituted. So the Nancy Page Quilt Club became the Peggy Lynn Quilt Club with patterns published on Sundays and the daily column disappears.

After the completion of the Flower Garden quilt, Peggy Lynn ran the McKim State Flowers quilt, once again replacing Peggy Lynn where McKim would have been in the text. The patterns appeared on Sundays once again. Once that series ended, the Galaxy quilt started. The Peggy Lynn column continued on Sundays into the early 1940s.

Ye Crazy Fan and Kursheedt's Standard Silk Appliques

Ye Crazy Fan Started it All

Just recently while studying the patents for Kursheedt's embroidered silk appliques, I found an intriguing Design Patent by Fanny Gillette that was granted on July 1, 1884.  The stitch designs looked very familiar as I had seen them on MANY different ads, trade cards and in books and booklets.

The book Fancy Work Recreations by Eva Niles had a several pages of the stitches.  Singer offered 100 Crazy Stitches for Patchwork on a trade card with the Patented on July 1, 1884 date on it, using the same stitches.

T.E. Parker, Weldon's, Brainerd & Armstrong, Sapolio, Durkee Select Spices, plus others offered stitch guides using the exact same stitches.

Yale Silk Works, Weldon's, T.E Parker, Strawbridge & Clothier, Hanington, and others offered crazy block layout designs that used these stitches as a guide to embellish the seams. 

And it all started with Ye Old Fan.  The stitch designs ended up on crazy quilts.

FYI:  Fanny Gillette was the sister of King Camp Gillette of the Gillette razor fame; and daughter of Fanny Lemira (Camp) Gillette who in 1887, at nearly sixty years old, published the White House Cook Book: A Selection of Choice Recipes Original and Selected, During a Period of Forty Years' Practical Housekeeping.

Kursheedt's Standard Silk Appliques

Did you ever wonder how some magnificently stitched designs on crazy quilts did not seem to match the stitcher's ability to stitch the seams?  Were there multiple people involved?  Yes, and probably some machinery too. 

Back in the 1860's embroidery machines were developed and in the 1870s, Kursheedt imported several and started tinkering with them; and by the early 1880s started patenting some embroidery designs and machine modifications.

In the winter of 1883 and into 1884 Kursheedt started an advertising blitz across the country offering samples and trade sheets of their Fashionable Specialties.  Their designs were prominent in many of the ladies' fashion magazines of the day - Delineator, Demorest, Godey's, Ladies Home Journal, etc.  They even offered a quarterly magazine of their specialties.  By the end of 1884 and into 1885 - the height of the Crazy Quilt Era - ads and articles showing images of the Standard Silk Appliques were in many periodicals.  Godey's even offered one in color.   

In several articles involving fancywork, the Kursheedt appliques were mentioned as being "exceedingly handy for ladies neither the time nor taste for embroidery" with "hundreds of beautiful designs" to "finish tides, scarfs, mats, and toilet sets."

No mention of using them on crazy quilts, but we all know they were, as I have numerous examples on crazy quilts in my collection. 

 

All the Techniques, Patterns and Materials used in Making the Quilted Book

Presenting the Completed Book to the Elmira Piecemakers Guild Meeting in Feb 2023

Here I am presenting the book to my guild.  I wanted to reflect on all the patterns, series quilts techniques and materials used in making the book - there was a LOT!

Louise’s “Scrap” Book of Quilts

Series Quilts Represented:
Quaddy Quiltie / Bear Paw – Ruby Short, 1916
Roly Poly Circus / Churn Dash – Ruby McKim, 1923
Memory Bouquet – Eveline Foland
Old English – Margaret Techy, Cleveland Plain Dealer
Golden West – Mary Erckenbrack
Flower Garden – Ruby Short McKim
Grandmother’s Flower Garden – Nancy Page (Florence LaGanke, Ann Kerven)
Modernistic Flower – Cecil B. Mullen, 1933
Flowers of Fort Worth / Log Cabin – Lois Clayton DeRaine
Nursery Rhyme Quilt – Philadelphia Inquirer, 1920-21 (Helen Baxter, Jeannette McDowell)
Quilt of Birds – 1938 Nancy Page (Florence LaGanke, Ann Kerven)

Other Patterns Used:
Bear Paw
Churn Dash
Log Cabin
Wagon Wheel with Rooster and Cat from Hide and Seek – Feeding Bib Design by Grace. B. Cross, 1908
Cluster of Lillies – Kansas City Star, 1934
1862 A Comic Patchwork – Arthur’s Home Magazine and The Family Friend
Sunbonnet Sue – Eveline Foland
Ladies Art Co – Letter “C” for Cat
Crazy Quilt Block:
  Horn Blowing Rooster – John L. Salter Trademark, 1883
  Grasshopper – Mrs. Farnham’s Home Beautiful, 1884
  Owl and Moon Man – J.F. Ingalls Stamping Patterns Catalogue, 1886
  Initial “L” – Peterson’s 1880
  Spotted Fish – Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine, 1861
The Calico Tree – Nancy Page (Florence LaGanke, Ann Kerven)
Tittens the Curious Kitten (Cat Fishing in a Fish Bowl) – John S. Piper Stamping Patterns Catalogue, 1892
Flower Initials – Ruby Short McKim
Rainbow Quilt Block Company – William Bray Pinch
Patchy Gus – The Patchy Zoo by G. Selma Sauer, 1931
Mouse – Louise D. Tessin, The Beatsie Party (illustrated poem), 1922
1948 Graduation Quilt – designed by my Grandmother, Yvonne Charlebois Welburn
Random Faces – designed by my son Walter
Plus my own designs

I was nearing the end (page 34+) and still had a lot of things I wanted to include. One thing they had in common was elephants, hence, a Basket of Elephants:
  A Jolly – Circus Ruby Short McKim, 1921
  Slumberland – Lockport Batting Co
  Patchwork Zoo – Prudence Penny (Seattle Post-Intelligencer), Bernice Redington and Maxine Buren
  Circus Quilt – Detroit Press (big elephant in center)
  Big Top Circus – Omaha World Herald, Harry Rasmussen
  Patchwork Circus – Spring 1928 McCall’s
  May Day Baskets – Hurbert Ver Mehren

Techniques Used (in addition to standard machine piecing):
Hand and Machine Applique
Hand and Machine Quilting
Mud Cloth Painting
Hand Embroidery
Beading
Fiber Couching
Seminole Piecing
Needle Felting
Random Piecing
Shaving Cream Dyed Fabric
Bobbin Embroidery
Paper Piecing
English Paper Piecing
Sashiko
Fabric Markers
Crazy Quilting
Water Color Effect with Sharpie Markers
Yo-Yo’s
Wool Applique
Ribbon Embroidery
Tatting (vintage piece)
Crochet (vintage piece done by my mom)

Materials used:

Used both vintage/antique fabric/blocks along with new ones.
Cotton - Fabric, DMC Floss, Thread

Blue Jeans
Silk - Fabric, Floss, Thread
Huck Towel
Wool - Fabric, Roving
Linen
Various Content – Home Dec Fabric Samples
Digitally Printed (Text and NYS Map)
Fabric and Ribbon from a box of Valentine’s Chocolate
Poly Batting, Fusible Interfacing, Thread (including poly/cotton blends)
Tractor Cab Packing Felt

 

Louise's "Scrap" Book of Quilts

 

Louise's Scrap Book of Quilts - Overview

The above is an overview of a quilted book I made for a quilt challenge. There are 40 quilted pages representing events in my life an my love of quilt history.  I designed the book without any real knowledge on how I was going to assemble it.  I had seen several "books" made by quilters, but they only had a few pages, and were small enough to fit into the throat of a standard domestic sewing machine.  I knew mine would not, as the Pages were going to be 10-inches square, and with the text and connector fabric, the Page Sets would be 24-inches long.

As I grappled with that, I continued making the Pages.  I thought about old books, and how their pages were thread bound together and glued in the back.  Gluing was not an option for me.  I watched youtube videos on how to bind books with blank papers - and the stitching involved in the process.

I had an eureka moment one morning when I woke up - I would thread bind the Page Sets to a Spine.  Originally I thought the pages would need to be about 3-eights of an inch apart, but then realized they would need to be 0.5-inch apart since each Page would be quilted.  Using the eyelet stitch on my sewing machine, I placed 7 eyelets equal distanced apart in the center Joining Fabric on each Page Set.

Eyelets were made in the Spine fabric to correspond with the ones on the Page Sets.  One of my Lamb to Loom guild members had some very heavy felt that was used to protect the cab of a tractor during shipping.  It was just the right material to use for the spine and book covers.  It is equivalent to about three layers of heavy weight interfacing.  It was a breeze to sew through. 

I started making pages on August 10, 2022, with the last one done on December 10, 2022 - just in time for our guild meeting.  I received a Ruby Crown for my efforts.  It took another month to get all the pages quilted, and then until February 7, 2023 to get it fully assembled.

There were a couple of date errors noted, so I "X'd" out the text and embroidered in the corrected dates.

Here are the page sets:

Page Sets 1, 2, and 3

Page Sets 4, 5, and 6

Page Sets 7, 8 and 9

Page Sets 10, 11 and 12

The journey is complete, and Walter, your mom finally has a book!

The Ruby Jubilee Challenge - A Quilted Book

 

Louise's "Scrap" Book of Quilts

Back in June 2022, the Elmira Piecemakers quilt guild issued a Ruby Jubilee Challenge to celebrate the guild's 40 year anniversary.  Members were given a 10-inch square of red fabric to make a quilt to be displayed at the December 2022 meeting.  That day, I decided to make a forty-page quilted book using designs from my favorite newspaper series quilt patterns.  The following day I started outlining what was to be included.  

I have an outline embroidery book in my collection designed by S. Agnes Putnam in 1895 and while doing research on that I found another cloth book by Louise Bourgeois called "Ode â l'Oubli" or Ode to Forgetting.  I always thought that someday I would like to make a cloth book too.

Inspired by these cloth books I started on my journey.

It took a while to actually start stitching on the book as I had a speaking commitment at the National Quilter's Hall of fame at the end of July.  I presented on my research on Ann Kerven, the artist behind the Nancy Page columns written by Florence LaGanke Harris. Florence was the 2022 Legend Inductee to the Quilter's Hall of Fame.  While there I got to meet Eleanor Burns, who got me started quilting back in 1999 with her PBS quilt show.  Eleanor presented information on Florence and the Nancy Page Quilt Club columns.

The first page was started on August 10, 2022.

I went through my sewing room and pulled out anything that was an orphan - something done at a guild meeting or quilt class that never went anywhere.  I had a baggie of Hexies of various sizes, a Bobbin Embroidery sample, some embroidery I did back in the 1970s, things my mother had made, several baggies of scrap triangles, etc.  You get the drift.

I piled up selections of fabrics that might go together, found some vintage blocks and fabrics and started assembling them into pages.  One of the hardest blocks I made was in honor of my mother - I used some of her needlework pieces I saved from the flood of 2011, right before she passed.  A swan Huck Towel and a floral doily she had crocheted the edging on.  Cutting into them was very nerve racking. 

I also struggled with the memory block for our son Isaac who passed in 2009.  I had an old bib of his that I was able to darn a bit so it could be added to the book.  I tried to use everything from my stash, but did end up buying a little silver trumpet charm and trumpet fabric for his page.  

Walter, for whom this book is for, also provided inspiration.

For an art project in middle school, Walter made a drawing, then a painting based on the drawing. I scanned and printed it out on fabric, then used fabric markers to color it in.  I tried to use a similar color scheme as in his, with the markers I already had.

Years ago I made him an angler fish embroidered applique picture.  Armed with a baggie of snowball block triangle remnants, I made a sea of triangles to house a new angler fish.  I couched some fibers to make him some sea grass to hide in.

Too Many Quilt Patterns, Not Enough Pages

Along about page 34, I realized I had way more ideas than pages left.  I wanted to add May Day Baskets and several more quilt designs.  I studied all of them that I wanted to include and realized they all had one thing in common - elephants.  Trying to get all the elephants into one basket proved to be quite a challenge.  The May Day Basket pattern had 32 to choose from.  Once I chose one, I had to eliminate the handle to fit them all in.  After the elephants were completed and the backgrounds chosen, I embroidered the basket in coordinating colors.  The math fabric is a bonus (to me at least) since I was an engineer for close to 20 years prior to being a full time mom.

The Last Block is Quilted January 9, 2022

I used many different methods in designing the book.  I did most of the page layouts in PowerPoint since I was space constrained to a 10-inch square.  Images were scanned in or drafted first, than altered to fit the page.  I used everything from an 1862 pattern (Comic Patchwork), to a technique offered in September 2022 by Catherine Redford, the Scenic Route, and everything in between. 

I sent pictures of the progress for each block to several of my quiltie friends - and friends I have known all my life, but do not quilt.  Even my sister-in-law got the texts.  It was a lot of fun going back through all of them and seeing the comments they sent back. 

I will post the Page Sets next.  It was a joy to make, now my husband asks if there will be a volume two?  Not right now, as I am gathering fabrics and ideas to make a quilted coat.  I will be taking Rachel Clark's quilted coat class this coming summer at Quilting by the Lake.  It's so much fun being retired!