As I worked my way through the set of 30 year old books (Great American Quilts) to purge, I was struck by how much techniques have changed over the years. Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers would be amazed, wouldn't they? Wouldn't they just love rotary cutters?
In the 1987 book, the traditional schoolhouse block had templates to trace for each of those pieces. There were no sizes listed anywhere for those pieces either. In fact there was a packet of plastic templates included with the book with some of the templates ready to cut out and trace. The first blocks I made when I started quilting in the 80s were traced with a pencil and cut out with scissors. I still have the cardboard Dresden Plate templates I made.
And then in the 1995 book, the schoolhouse block appeared again - but this time there were no templates to trace except for the triangles. Instead of templates for simple squares and rectangles we see the sizes given for the pieces. And if we look for this same block today we would most likely be given the dimensions for the triangles to be cut diagonally from squares. No templates at all.
On a side note - I now have a stack of books about 15" tall, ready to be given away. And there are many more to go.
My sister commented during our FaceTime call on Sunday that Mom didn’t have any stash. I had to laugh at that because originally quilters used what they had on hand - old clothing and scraps - very little yardage. The idea of quilting, too, has changed.
ReplyDeleteThink how many more we can make in the same amount of time now. So now I feel like I have no excuse, lol.
ReplyDeleteI've owned the GAQ volumes over the years -- finally purged a stack of them at our guild raffle in January (just nine months ago??). They were published on the "edge" between templates and template-free. I didn't realize the series went into the 2000's. A few months ago (when our local used book store reopened) I bought used copies of GAQ 2003 and 2004. BTW, many of the quilts in the series were anthologized in this: https://www.amazon.com/LEISURE-ARTS-Encyclopedia-Classic-Patterns/dp/B003W0IY8K
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