The QuiltTownUSA Gallery
offers you a look at quilts from some of the premiere quilters in the USA.
It is a place where you can come whenever you are looking for some
inspiration. You will find beautiful and creative quilts always on display. Visit us again
and again; the exhibits are constantly changing. Stay as long as you like. Our doors never
close.
Currently on display are the quilts from our Fabulous
Feedsack Quilts book. Capture the nostalgia of feedsacks - a special part of
American textile history - when you make your versions of the quilts in this pattern book.
Use vintage feedsacks, reproduction prints or other favorite fabrics. The quilt photos
provide a fascinating study of feedsack fabrics while the patterns guide you in making 14
lovely traditional patterns.
Jane Clark Stapel of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania instituted The Feedsack
Club. Membership has grown from five founding members to more than 500. To learn more
about Jane and The Feedsack Club, visit them at The Meeting Place.
To return to the CURRENT GALLERY on display
click here.
Click on a quilt to view a larger image.
Images average between 20k and 40k. Use your browsers back button to return to this page.
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Paula Hammer
lives in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, so it was only natural for her to use red, white
and blue feedsack fabrics in "Ohio Star" (67" x 76"),
her tribute to the 1996 Olympics. It's amazing how varied each Ohio Star looks - it's all
in the printed fabric!
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Glenda Henry,
of Hartford, Kentucky, has collected a stack of over 500 different feedsack designs in the
past eight years and she doesn't waste a scrap from any of them. Her string-pieced "Railroad"
quilt (71" x 86") is great for using up those odd-sized pieces.
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| Inspired by an antique quilt, Ellie
Hudacsek, stitched "My Sunshine Quilt" (69" x 80").
Ellie used muslin and old cotton feedsacks to achieve a '30's look. By alternating muslin
blades with print ones, Ellie achieved the sun-ray effect. |
Paula Hammer created "Plaid
Holes in the Barn Door" (65" x 79") as a result of trading 6"
feedsack charm squares with friends and members of The Feedsack Club. She used plaids and
stripes from her collection for the blocks and finished the edges with striped prairie
points. |
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| Paula Hammer of Lilburn, Georgia,
brought the fabric she obtained in trades with her feedsack club to a mountain retreat
with her "stitchin' group." That's where she made "Dresden
Plates" (104" square). The grid-like pattern of the triple sashing and
Nine Patch cornerstones act as a pleasing contrast to the circular Dresden Plate blocks
and swag border. |
Paula Hammer's old-fashioned "Appalachian
Sunset" (86" square) was made using 6" feedsack squares that she
had traded and collected as a member of a Feedsack Club. Even the blue triangles at the
corners of the blocks were made from solid blue feedsacks she had collected. Machine
pieced and hand quilted with cotton batting, this quilt is a loving tribute to quilting's
thrifty past. Even the batting was an exercise in thrift because Paula won it as a door
prize! |
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| Jeannette Fenner Knauff of Hillsboro, Ohio, set
out to make a quilt with all feedsack fabrics, but didn't stop with just one. "Straight
Furrows" (85" x 99") is her ninth Log Cabin variation, all
inspired by a quilt shown in a 1980 issue of Woman's Day. Jeannette used a
"quilt-as-you-sew" method, creating a patchwork back. |
Think "triangles" when you piece this
intricate "Rose Star Quilt" (86" x 96"). Anna Wescott
of Logansport, Indiana, chose this old-time pattern to show off her growing collection of
colorful feedsack fabrics. The blue star points in each block lend continuity to the
design, while the white furnishes a quiet background for the many busy prints. |
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| Lynette Crawford of Belton, Texas, pieced the "Snail's
Trail" (76" x 80") quilt, an old-fashioned design. She enjoys
exchanging 6" feedsack squares with others. Lynette has fond memories of living on a
farm and seeing her mother use feedsacks for dresses, sheets and towels. |
Quilting teacher Connie Tilman of Powhatan,
Virginia, pieced this "Jacob's Ladder" (86" x 110").
Most of the prints in her quilt contain at least some yellow to coordinate with the
striped border. She's been collecting feedsacks and other vintage textiles since 1990. |
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| Ellie Hudacek of Ambridge, Pennsylvania, used
vintage scraps to make her "Feedsack Shooting Star" (85"
square). A self-taught quilter, she was inspired by a pattern in Sara Nephew's book, Designs
from the Thirties. Despite Ellie's preference for traditional patterns, she makes the
most of modern methods, like the machine quilting that highlights this antique design. |
Charlene Brewer purchased a small quit top which
she enlarged to make "Axe Blade Charm Quilt" (83" x
106"). She replaced duplicate pieces in the original quilt top and any that were not
cut from feedsack fabrics. The quilt is composed of more than 400 different prints.
Charlene notes that two dark blue pieces are the same color and design, but their weave
differs. Can you find them? |
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| Using a pattern that was popular in the 1930s,
Patricia Reid of Titusville, Florida, collected 42 feedsack prints for "Dream
of the Blue Roses" (60" x 72"). The entire quilt is composed of
the same pattern that has been flipped-flopped in alternating blocks. Notice how the
muslin and feedsack prints also alternate between each block, creating a dynamic contrast
with positive and negative space. |
Charlene Brewer, of Bethany, Oklahoma, reversed
the placement of dark and light blocks in her "Drunkard's Patch" quilts (each
97" x 105") to produce mirror images. Charlene entitled her quilts "Alternative
Reflections I" (not shown) and "Alternative Reflections
II" (above). This layout of Drunkard's Path blocks is known as Devil's
Puzzle. |
| Patterns for all quilts displayed are available in Fabulous Feedsack
Quilts. (We're sorry
but this book is out of print. Please check with your local quilt shop
or library for a copy.) |
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