I love to quilt! And sometimes Mr QuiltinAnnie helps with the design; figuring out the angles and measurements! This letterbox series will highlight a traditional quilt block or pattern beginning with the letter of the stamp found inside the cache. You will need to supply your own stamp pad.
Postage Stamp quilt block
Postage stamp quilts are so called, because traditionally each square was as big as a postage stamp!!! These quilts became popular during the Great Depression, using up even the tiniest scraps to make the impossibly sweet one inch squares. The fabrics usually were calicoes left over from clothing, sheets, feed sacks, and “rag bags” bought for pennies at department stores.
Traditional Postage stamp quilts are made up of thousands of tiny 1 inch by 1 inch squares sewn together, and requires a great deal of patience. After all, early on they would have been pieced by hand!!! Even now, by machine, this quilt does not come together quickly. Through history, these quilts were a way to use up the tiniest scraps of fabric left over from sewing. Often, one quilter would trade scraps with another quilter, so there would be variety in the quilt. Postage stamp quilts are often pieced with no set pattern in mind, but there are no hard and fast rules about how to arrange the colors of the squares.
During the 1930s and 40s competitive quilting became popular at local fairs and through magazine contests. Women endeavored to outdo each other in the number of patches they could piece into a single quilt. So this was a very popular pattern!