I am pleased and amused at how excited that Joan is about the progress of the quilt. I, personally, would keep a wary eye on her to make sure none of my quilt blocks would go missing. I would be most upset to get to the end and have blocks that needed to be re-done.
Block #12 ~ The Lamp
When the lamp block was made the quilt club members had finished 12, or just half, of the alphabet quilt blocks. Nancy had omitted X and Z. This gave her exactly 24 blocks for the child’s quilt. Joan thought that the quilt was a long time in the making, but Aunt Nancy explained , that one block a week was all most mothers had time to make. Some- times Nancy feared that, Joan would wear out the finished blocks because she handled them so often and patted them and told stories about them.
The lamp which Nancy had chosen was like the round and chunky lamp which Joan had in her own bedroom. It had a familiar look to the child. She associated the lamp with bedtime stories and Aunt Nancy had to suspend all work on the quilt until she had taken Joan into her arms and told her a story about a wonderful lamp owned by a man named Aladdin.
When the story was done Joan ran away contentedly and Aunt Nancy started on the block.
She cut the newspaper square and also a square of white cloth. This soft white gingham was exactly one-quarter inch larger on all sides than the paper square. By placing the cloth on the paper pattern and holding the two of them flat against the window pane, Nancy was able to outline the letter and the lamp with a sharp pointed, hard lead pencil.
When this was done she pasted the paper square onto a sheet of lightweight cardboard or tag board.
This was dried under pressure. Then when thoroughly dry the shade and base were cut from the paper.
These were laid on fast color cloth. Nancy used a small flower print for the shade. The base was of plain material. She chose the same shade of green as she was using for her connecting strips.
In cutting the cloth she allowed one-quarter inch on all sides for turning under. After turning the edges under she basted and pressed them. Then she pinned them in place over the outlines on the square of white cloth. She basted them and then appliqued them with fine slanting, invisible hemming stitches. The base went on first Then the shade was appliqued.
The chain was put in next. French knots made the chain and a small round in satin stitch the little ball at the end of the chain. She used yellow for this.
The letter “L” was next worked. Nancy had been using a fine outline stitch, although some of the members chose a close chain stitch. Whichever one is used must be close and heavy.
This completed the twelfth block. Now the members joined the L to A and E strip, the J to the B and F trip, the K to the C and G strip and the L to the D and H strip. They used the strip of color, 1-1/2 by 6-1/2 seamed between two white strips of equal size. This large strip was then seamed between two large white blocks with the applique figures on them.
No attempt was made to put in the long strips which extend in an unbroken line from top to bottom of pieced part of quilt. They were put in when the 24 blocks were completed.
“Nancy Page Quilt Club – Alphabet Quilt – Block #12 – Lamp” Newspapers.com, Edmonton Journal, January 11, 1930, https://www.newspapers.com/article/edmonton-journal-nancy-page-quilt-club/81123709/
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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