How-to-Quilt.com

June 2005 Newsletter

 Greetings!

A portion of the June 2005 Newsletter:
"A Tidbit of Quilting History” – Premium Quilts
"Tips, Tools and Tricks" – All Kinds of Batting
Get Great Tips at QuiltersTips.com
"What's in a Name?" – Learn about a traditional quilt block that has many different names
"Recipe for Quilters" – Pinwheel Cookies

A Tidbit of Quilting History - Premium Quilts

While traveling through the Colorado Rockies, I came upon an antique shop that had a stack of flannel flags from countries all over the world. How intrigued I was to discover this treasure. Research provided the key.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s flour, sugar and tea manufacturers enclosed a small flag or banner with their product. Sometimes these were made of flannel, and sometimes they were made of silk. In addition, small flannel flags or banners were given with tobacco purchases.

Ladies used these to make table coverings as well as quilts. Some of the silk banners have portraits of women on them, and are fairly small. The flannel pieces have flags, college crests, and Indian designs, and are all different sizes, some quite large.

The picture at the bottom of the home page of this site is the quilt I made from the flannel pieces that had flags on them. 

Tips, Tools and Tricks - All kinds of batting

Have you ever thought about using something other than traditional batting – the cotton, polyester, wool, or silk you can buy at your local quilt shop? Using something different seems to go with the whole quilting-thinking (using scraps, bits and good left-overs). Some quilters have gotten quite creative!

Here are some ideas of other fabrics you can use in place of batting in your quilt.

I just found this great site for quilting tips - http://www.QuiltersTips.com offers the top-rated quilting tips on the Internet. All of the tips are submitted by
quilters from around the world, and are rated by the same quilters. The top-rated quilting tip of the week receives the weekly Quilters Tips Contest prize. In addition, the top-rated quilting tips appear at http://www.TopQuiltersTips.com.

One cool thing about this site is that it has an outstanding Search feature. No hunting through pages and pages of tips on subjects you don't need. Just enter a word or two, click on 'Search' and a list of related tips appears. Click on
only the ones you want to see! Easy! Convenient! Check it out and bookmark the site: http://www.QuiltersTips.com

What's in a Name? - Early in the 1900s, as more women became interested in quilting and wanted to expand the variety of blocks they used in their quilts, they would write to magazines and newspapers for ideas. Publications would list the requests in one issue then publish the answers in the next issue. The blocks would be published with instructions and a picture. Often the blocks were renamed to sound more current or to given credit to a city or state.

This month’s featured block has only 2 different names recorded. Grandmother Clark called it Pinwheel, and the Kansas City Star called it Flying Kite.

http://www.how-to-quilt.com/patterns/blocks.shtml.

Thanks to Maggie Malone's book 5,500 Quilt Block Designs for this information.

Recipe for Quilters - Pinwheel Cookies

This is by far my favorite cookie recipe, with fond memories of helping my mom make and bake them, then teaching my own children to make them. And now seeing them make them for their friends and co-workers. Although the recipe calls for chocolate, we have been known to leave out the chocolate and put in red or green food coloring at Christmas time. When I substitute the red or green, I usually add 2 teaspoons of peppermint flavoring.

4 ½ cups flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoons salt
1 ½ cups shortening
2 ¼ cups sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla

Mix all of the ingredients together. Divide in half; add 3 squares of melted chocolate to one half. Roll out one half on a piece of aluminum foil or waxed paper, making a sort of rectangle. (I usually start with the plain half.) Spread the other half on top. (I flatten it before I place it on top of the bottom layer. I think if you roll it out, it would make the bottom layer too thin.) Roll it up like a jelly roll, making a long, log about 3” in diameter.

Chill (this makes it easier to slice). Slice thin pieces (less than ¼”) and place on a cookie sheet. The cookies will be circles (mine end up being ovals) with swirls of vanilla and chocolate (or vanilla and red or green).

Bake at 400° for 8 – 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

If you have a recipe to share, email us at: info@How-to-Quilt.com. We will be happy to publish the recipe in an upcoming newsletter.

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