- A review of the pattern book "Star Quilts"
"If the American Midwest is the heart of quilting country, then Kansas City, MO, is its soul." So begins the book entitled "Star Quilts" published by the Kansas City Star. Back in 1928 the KC Star newspaper began running quilt patterns. These patterns have become world famous and many of them are gathered into this book published in 1999. The book contains 32 KC Star quilt patterns with instructions for today's quilters, reproductions of the original printings and color photos of the quilts.
The story is told of how the STAR printed the patterns beginning in 1928 through the mid-30's, and then occasionally until 1961 when they were no longer printed in the paper. A total of 1,068 patterns were printed in the STAR during that period.
Even though the patterns have appeared in other books, this publication is outstanding in that the history of each block is included. The patterns have been re-drafted and rotary cutting directions are given for today's quilter. The blocks are all 12 inches square so they would work well in a sampler.
The section "How to make a Kansas City Star Quilt" includes the tools and fabric needed for a full size quilt, basic direction for rotary cutting, piecing, quilting and binding. This section has a photo of an Oklahoma woman and her quilt in 1936, then living in California. If you are a student of history, you know that many Oklahomans migrated to California during the Depression of the 1930's. The photo shows a beautiful Dresden Plate quilt, proudly displayed by this lady in front of what is probably her home, a shack made partly of canvas. Even though we may be dreadfully poor, we all love quilts!
A section "1929-1938 Stitching through hard times" says that quilting in Kansas peaked beetween 1930 and 1936. In 1930, 53 patterns appeared in the STAR. During this time, fabric was hard to come by, and any fabric that wasn't too faded or worn was used, the bottom of a wornout dress, tails of shirts, etc. Manufacturers of feed and flour began using printed bags with attractive patterns to sell their products. (I remember my mother looking for the prettiest patterns when she bought flour or chick feed.) Another photo here shows ladies of that era quilting at a frame.
The patterns begin with 1928 Album which was a friendship block with names of the quilters embroidered in the center of the blocks.
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