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Palm Quilting Patterns on Old-fashioned Blankets

Which hand quilted patterns were stitched into American quilts made in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? Nine common patterns seen by this quilt historian are described here.

1. Clamshell is one of the earliest patterns. These were stitched allover the most notable on whole cloth and patchwork quilts or since the background between other quilting patterns.

2. Feathers were most frequent on pre-Civil War fancy and elaborate quilts which were used on special occasions, or given as a gift. The feather was not in the shape of a bird's long pointed feathers; these were short like a flower petal, and rounded at the end. Feathered designs were stitched in a variety of motifs like a garland, wreath, pineapple, and heart. Feathered designs were commonly used on red and green appliqué quilts made in the middle years of the 1800s and on Colonial Revival style appliqué quilts made in the 20th Century before the second World War.

3. Hanging diamonds were squares on point, often used in conjunction with feathered patterns. They could be small or large in size. These folks were stitched around appliquéd pieces to keep the batting on place and fill in the background areas of the quilt. After the Civil War how big the handing diamond increased and it had become the sole quilting pattern on some patchwork quilts. Larger size diamonds are found on vintage quilts.

4. Another common option for an all over pattern patchwork and utilitarian quilts is
a square grid. As the allover pattern, the squares were large to larger in dimensions. As the background pattern, they were smaller depending on the patchwork or appliquéd pattern. Here again, a special quilt received smaller grids, which filled the empty areas to hold the batting and layers together well.

5&6. Cables and chevrons were stitched into borders and sashing strips. Cables were connected curved "S" shapes running vertically down a border or sashing. Chevron's were straight lines forming "V's" filling the width from the border in a zigzag shape. One, two, and three lines decreasing in dimensions formed the cables and chevrons. Both century's quilt makers used those two patterns.

7. Double and single parallel lines were usually quilted on the diagonal across the entire quilt or just in the borders. Pre-Civil War quilts could have triple parallel lines, stitched close together without anyone's knowledge areas around appliqués and in the borders. In the late nineteenth century, women also quilted lines across the appliquéd pieces. Single and double lines, spaced further apart than earlier quilts, were stitched in vintage era quilts.

8. Fan quilting is also called elbow quilting as the quilter used the reach from her elbow to her fingers to make the arch or fan shape. Methodist Fan and Baptist Fan have been popular names for your fan too, as it was fast and easy pattern for a gang of church women to stitch around a big quilting frame. In England the fan is called waves. The pattern was common later in the last quarter of the 19th and first 50 % of 20th century quilts, and especially popular in the Southern and southern Midwestern states. The fan was mostly used on everyday quilts.

9. The one-quarter inch in the seam stitching was sometimes referred to as "quilting by the piece" or "in the piece" reflecting just how it appeared. This pattern was utilized occasionally from the mid-nineteenth century on, never becoming a common pattern until the late 20th century.








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