Modern Marvels: Quilts Made From Kits, 1915-1950

In the 1920s and 1930s, quilt kits—ready-made sets of fabric components—were new on the market and were seen as a modern, time-saving way to make a well-designed bedcovering. Kits of die-cut pieces for appliqué and pieced quilts sold for as little as $2.85 – at a time when a gallon of milk cost about 50 cents and a loaf of bread about 10 cents. Kits saved the maker the time needed for tracing around templates and cutting out each design unit. Show-stopping Lone Star and Broken Star quilts, so common in the 1930s, even came packaged with all the diamond pieces sorted by color. What could be easier?

Modern Marvels: Quilts made from Kits features some of the designers, companies, and publications that were well-known for their kits from the 1920s until about the middle of the century, when quiltmaking become less popular generally. Look around and you’ll see quilts designed by the famous Marie Webster and Anne Orr, among others, and from ever-present magazines like McCall’s Needlework and Craft. Many of these designs would look great in today’s homes — Come marvel at the fresh, modern quilts of a bygone era

Periodical Circulation

In the decades following the Civil War (1861-1865), a series of inventions reduced the cost of printed materials. These included:

the linotype machine, which set type faster
paper made from inexpensive wood pulp instead of expensive cotton fiber

These inventions, coupled with improved transportation and Rural Free Delivery, ensured that periodicals could reach every citizen. Many of the new periodicals, targeted at women readers, advertised quilt patterns, and later, quilt kits.

Colonial Revival

The Colonial Revival, a decorative arts movement based on a romanticized vision of the American past.

American antiques were in demand; spinning wheels, quilting frames and other artifacts of the past became fashionable. Patchwork quilts, which the Victorians had derided as old-fashioned, were now described in women’s magazines as a necessity for the well-furnished home.

Marketing

Accompanying the rapid growth in periodicals was an explosion in marketing and advertising. Brand recognition became particularly important starting in the early 1900s. As a result, quilt pattern and kit purveyors often branded their products by inventing fictional characters with colonial-sounding names, such as Hope Winslow or Grandma Dexter. These characters, featured as the “authors” of popular quilting columns, were meant to appeal to consumers, putting a pleasant and quaint face on their quilt-related products.

Professional Quilt Designers

While quilt patterns in the 1800s and earlier had been passed on from person to person, quilt designs in the twentieth century increasingly became professionally-designed commercial products. In this exhibition, three professional designers are featured: Marie Webster, Anne Orr, and Hubert ver Mehren. All three of them were not only influential designers, but also successful business people.

Works in the Exhibition

Blue Basket
Paragon Company kit #01101
Maker unknown
Circa 1950
Possibly made in Pennsylvania
98.5 x 85.5
IQM 1997.007.0292, Ardis and Robert James Collection

Paragon Needlecraft of New York advertised a kit for this quilt in the Winter 1948 edition of McCall's Needlework & Craft Magazine. The quilt’s limited color palette of medium and dark blues became popular during the 1950s and departed from the bright, Easter egg and patriotic blues of previous decades. The Blue Basket included a background fabric stamped for appliqué placement and quilting designs. The various blue fabrics for the appliqué pieces were stamped both for cutting and for embroidery. Construction marks are still faintly visible in the finished quilt.

Broken Star
Maker unknown
Circa 1920-1940
Possibly made in Canton, OH
83.5 x 81
IQM 1997.007.0710, Ardis and Robert James Collection

Designers and manufacturers often sold kits in as many as four different grades of fabric, of which sateen was usually the best. This quilt appears to have been made from a lower, economy grade fabric. Although the quilt’s kit source has not yet been identified, the Broken Star pattern represents one of the most popular designs of the 1930s. Nearly every catalog of the period offered at least one kit for a Lone Star or this or another of its variations. For example, the 1934 Ladies Art Company catalog of St. Louis, Missouri, sold "Sunburst," a broken star, in two variations: bleached muslin (a lower quality plain weave cotton—for the background) and gingham (a higher quality plain weave solid color cotton—for the stars) for $5.65, and in all gingham for $6.55.

The Royal Aster Quilt
Home Art Studio Pattern 342 (Hubert ver Mehren design)
Julia Maude Marsh Smith
Made in Henderson, or Crete, NE
c. 1935
83.5 x 82.5
IQM 2012.025.0001, gift of DeEtta Feeken and Kathleen Moss

Although this quilt was almost certainly made from a pattern and not a kit, we included it in “Modern Marvels” because it shows the great care with which some quiltmakers sought to imitate kits by the same designer. In this case, the Hubert ver Mehren-designed Royal Aster was offered as Pattern #342 in ver Mehren’s Home Art Studio catalog. But Nebraskan Julia Smith was clearly familiar with ver Mehren’s kits, such as his famous Lone Star, which featured his trademark use of four shades of a single color (in this case yellow). She followed his color scheme precisely and even used sateen fabrics, just as in his Lone Star kit. In addition, she chose to follow the border design of the Lone Star kit rather than the complex one recommended in the Royal Aster pattern. Many quiltmakers of this era combined elements of both kits and patterns into a single quilt or even added their own embellishments to the original design to make the quilt their own.

Hubert ver Mehren’s Home Art Studio of DesMoines originally sold textiles stamped with embroidery patterns. Ever on the lookout for ways to market his goods more successfully, he added quilt patterns and kits to his line of merchandise. At first he simply borrowed from published sources; later he began designing himself, almost always using large medallion designs pieced from different values of a single color, usually shades of blue, pink, yellow, or orchid.

Daisy Chain
Mary McElwain kit
Maker unknown
Circa 1936
Possibly made in Shaker Heights, OH
100 x 76.5
IQM 1997.007.0834, Ardis and Robert James Collection

Mary McElwain's 1936 catalog, The Romance of the Village Quilts, featured this quilt kit on its cover. In her catalog McElwain included an essay describing quilting in the American past. She said,

"In our early homes the love of the quilt fastened itself upon the hearts of the people, and as the pioneers came West, the quilt made its way also. … [With these quilts] we have recaptured the spirit of early America and caught the glamour and romance of the old days ..."

McElwain, like many other pattern and kit purveyors, linked her products with the Colonial Revival, a design movement that romanticized images of America’s colonial and pioneer past. Tastemakers, advertisers, and consumers alike felt that quilts gave a quaint, old-fashioned feel to a home’s interior, especially attractive in an age when the country was modernizing and urbanizing very rapidly.

Double Wedding Ring
Maker Unknown
Circa 1930-1940
Possibly made in Kentucky
97 x 79.5
IQM 1997.007.0498, Ardis and Robert James Collection

The precise matching and gradation of colors used to create the shading in this pieced quilt strongly suggest that it was made from a kit. Manufacturers easily and efficiently produced quantities of die-cut shapes in a precise range of colors, whereas the individual quiltmaker at home found it much more difficult to assemble such a perfect range of fabrics.

Double Wedding Ring was one of the most popular patterns of the 1920s and 1930s; nearly every catalog offering kits included one for this design. The pattern probably dates from the 1920s, but advertisers often described it as being much older. For example, the Virginia Snow Studio's catalog of 1932 described "…the Colonial homes of our grandmothers…" on a page offering precut patches for a Double Wedding Ring. This inaccurate and romanticized portrayal of early American life was part of the decorative arts movement knows as the Colonial Revival, influential from the late 19th century well into the 20th, which emphasized a fictional history of quilting as a colonial American pastime; we now know quiltmaking was largely a post-Revolutionary War activity.

Dresden I
Ann Orr kit (1932)
Circa 1932
Made in the United States
87 x 74
IQM 1997.007.0771, Ardis and Robert James Collection

Anne Orr, the needlework editor for Good Housekeeping magazine for more than 20 years, designed this quilt. Orr initially focused on patterns for traditional needlework such as crochet and embroidery. As quilting became more popular during the 1920s, however, she also began designing quilts. Although she designed many appliqué quilts, she is best known for a series of innovative pieced quilts--like this one, Dresden I--that look as if they were based on cross stitch designs.

Floral Basket
NeedleArt Guild kit #3577 (c. 1932)
Maker unknown
Circa 1932
Possibly made in Cleveland, Ohio
87.5 x 76
IQM 1997.007.0791, Ardis and Robert James Collection

In 1932, the Needleart Guild advertised this kit in its catalog, Colonial Needlecraft Heirloom Quilts. Needleart Guild was the retail division of the F. A. Wurzburg Company (Grand Rapids, Michigan), one of the largest producers of quilt kits from the 1920s to the 1940s. According to the catalog description, it came "stamped on white Nainsook with fast color appliqués." (Nainsook is a soft, lightweight, plain-woven cotton fabric.) The kit also included specially folded bias binding to complete the basket and corner grid designs. The kit sold for $5.25.

The catalog illustration for Floral Basket shows a trio of pink flowers in each corner. This quilt’s maker added three more groups of flowers; quiltmakers commonly added their own touches to quilts they made from kits. She also may have added the quilted butterflies encircling the center basket.

May Tulips
Marie Webster kit
Maker unknown
Circa 1925
Possibly made in Ohio
91 x 76
IQM 1997.007.0643, Ardis and Robert James Collection

Webster offered May Tulips in her 1931 catalog, Quilts and Spreads, in several color combinations: pink and lavender, yellow and lavender, or two shades of pink, yellow or lavender, all with green leaves and stems. Later that same year, Needlecraft Magazine carried an article written by Webster herself describing her May Tulips quilt and offering patterns for 50 cents. In subsequent issues, the magazine offered kits: a stamped kit on unbleached muslin with percale for appliqué and binding sold for $3.65 for a twin bed size; $3.90 for a full bed size.

Marie Webster, one of the most famous quilt designers of the early 20th century, studied antique quilts, and in 1915 published the first history of American quilts, Quilts: Their Story and How to Make Them. In her own designs, she took inspiration from historical patterns but adapted them to suit modern tastes. For instance, instead of using the red-and-green color schemes of many 19th-century floral appliqué quilts, she chose delicate pastels. In addition, she was very familiar with current design movements, such as Art Nouveau and Art Deco, both of which are apparent in this May Tulips quilt in the sinuous lines of the flowers and the geometric angularity of the border design.

Pink Dogwood
Marie Webster kit
Maker unknown
Circa 1927
Possibly made in Indiana
84 x 83
IQM 1997.007.0824, Ardis and Robert James Collection

Marie Webster offered this kit in her January 1931 catalog, Quilts and Spreads. It could be ordered as a stamped kit ($10), basted top ($45), or finished quilt ($90).

Webster's designs first appeared in the Ladies' Home Journal in 1911. The response to this magazine feature was so positive that she began selling quilt patterns from her home. Her patterns included full-scale tissue-paper drawings showing the placement of the appliqué pieces, and fabric swatches to guide customers in the correct choice of color. By the early 1920s she had formed her own company, Practical Patchwork. She intended her later designs to be sold in kit form, and she typically made easier to appliqué than her earlier ones. Cottage industries such as Webster's were an important source of quilt patterns and kits in the 1920s and 1930s.

Poppy
Marie Webster pattern
Maker unknown
Circa 1925-1940
Made in the United States
89 x 77
IQM 1997.007.0411.2, Ardis and Robert James Collection

One of Marie Webster's most famous designs, "Poppies," was first published in the January 1912 issue of Ladies' Home Journal in an article entitled "The New Flower Patchwork Quilts." The central medallion format that she used for many of her designs, including this one, was derived from her study of early American quilts. This design layout, a marked innovation compared to the geometric repeating blocks most of Webster’s contemporaries were accustomed to, was both innovative and influential.

Throughout most of the nineteenth century, quilt patterns were passed from quilter to quilter on a face-to-face basis. With the advent of widely distributed periodicals and mass marketing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, quilts became professionally-designed commercial products. Marie Webster is known as the first and one of the best quilt designers. Her innovations included the use of delicate pastel color schemes and naturalistic, gracefully curving motifs.

Snowflake
Paragon Company kit
Maker unknown
Circa 1963
Made in the United States
92 x 76.5
IQM 1997.007.0682, Ardis and Robert James Collection

The Paragon Needlecraft Company sold two versions of this kit. In the first, offered in 1937, all the snowflakes are alike. This more sophisticated version, with four different snowflakes, was available with a green, rose, gray or blue background. It was offered in the Winter 1949-50 issue of McCall's Needlework & Crafts, a magazine that was published until 1997 under the name McCall's Needlework. The quilt top may date from as early as 1949, but the polyester batting in this quilt indicates that it was completed after 1963. Kits, while at their zenith of popularity in the 1930s and 40s, continued to be popular throughout the twentieth century, and still are today.

Trip Around the World
Maker unknown
Circa 1930-1940
Possibly made in Ohio
78 x 70
IQM 1997.007.0819, Ardis and Robert James Collection

Determining if a quilt was made from a kit can be difficult, especially with pieced quilts. While appliqué quilts sometimes have blue stamped outlines still visible at turned-under fabric edges, with pieced quilts the dotted lines are concealed in the seam allowances, if they were present at all.

With this Trip Around the World, other clues suggest it likely was made from a kit. The fabrics are all typical of the 1930s era, indicating that they were probably purchased at one time. A true scrap quilt, on the other hand, is more likely to contain some older fabrics. Also, each row of the design is made entirely from one fabric. Makers of scrap quilts often did not have enough of one fabric to complete a row, and therefore used two or more fabrics. Finally, only one row is a repetition of another; a different fabric was used for nearly every row. All of these clues make it likely that this quilt was made from a ready-cut kit.

Works in the Exhibition

Gallery Photos

This exhibition was made possible through funding from the Nebraska Arts Council and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment. The Nebraska Arts Council, a state agency, has supported this exhibition through its matching grants program funded by the Nebraska Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment. Visit www.artscouncil.nebraska.gov for more information.

Past

Event Date

Friday, June 6, 2014 to Saturday, February 28, 2015