The colors described in this block are cheery and happy. It makes me wonder is Florence made up these quilt blocks before publishing these patterns. This led my brain down the rabbit hole of wondering about ALL of the newspaper serial quilt block designers.
Block #11 ~ The King
There was some question in the minds of all the quilt club members when they saw the eleventh block in the alphabet quilt. “Was this a king, or was it Humpty Dumpty himself? Nancy pointed to the crown on his head and said: “Tis the king himself. Make obeisance to your ruler.” She told them that they were really quite unobserving since no egg had as round a face as this king. Joan wanted to know whether this was the king who counted out his money, and she asked for the queen who ate the bread and honey. Nancy told her the queen might come into the picture later.
The newspaper square was cut from the paper. A square of soft, white gingham was cut one-quarter inch larger on all sides than paper square. The cloth was laid on top of the paper and the two were held flat against the window pane. With a sharp-pointed, hard lead pencil the letter and the pattern was outlined.
Nancy did not draw the features of the face nor the diagonal lines in the cuff, since they would be covered up anyway by the antiqued pieces of material. She planned to use the paper picture to show her where to put these stitches later.
The paper square was pasted onto a piece of lightweight cardboard or tag board and dried under pressure.
Nancy, who was using pale green soft gingham to join the various blocks, was also using pale green fast color embroidery cotton to outline the letter “K”.
She used a fine outline stitch., although some of the members chose a fine chain stitch instead. They felt it gave more solidity to the letter.
She choose brilliant yellow for the crown, pale lavender for the ruff and pale pink gingham for the face and ears. Of course, these pieces were all of fast color, washable material.
She might have used a figured material for the ruff, but then the diagonal stitching would not have shown so plainly. It really needed, she felt, that stitchery to give the effect of a ruff.
The paper square when thoroughly dry was used as a pattern. In cutting the pieces of cloth she allowed one-quarter inch extra on all sides for turning under. The ears were cut apart from the face. This gave her five pieces, a crown, a ruff, a face and two ears.
After turning under the edges she basted them down and pressed the pieces. Then she laid them in place, pinning them, and later basting them. She put the ears on first, then the crown, then the face and last the ruff.
The hair was worked in brown using a running stitch. The eyebrows were in outline stitch in the same shade of brown. The nose and mouth were in pink embroidery cotton. She used a fine outline stitch.
He was a brave and gallant king when finished.
“Nancy Page Quilt Club – Alphabet Quilt – Block #11 – King” Newspapers.com, Edmonton Journal, January 4, 1930, https://www.newspapers.com/article/edmonton-journal-nancy-page-quilt-club/81123665/
If you’d like to purchase all of the alphabet quilt blocks as a block-of-the-month-club, you can do that here. This is NOT an affiliate link.
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