Granny Made Quilts and So Did I- Check out sections of Louisiana Market Bulletin from 1962

In my fabric stash are some old quilt blocks made by my maternal Granny. You can see some of the fabrics had to have been feed sacks, and some were probably Grampaw's shirts and Granny's dresses. One of the interesting things about Granny's blocks are the squares of an old Louisiana Market Bulletin from October 1962 that she sewed them to. I scanned these directly so they could be enlarged enough to read what was for sale or trade and going on back then. Click on the photos and read what farmers bought and sold, and what housewives sold to get "pin money". My understanding of "pin money" was the little extra money a housewife managed to save from the household expenses and extra money she earned by selling eggs, butter, milk and home baked breads, pies and cakes and honey. We're lucky to be able to go buy packages of needles and pins very cheaply these days; but years ago, these were precious items that cost a lot of money. Each pin was hand forged by a tinker, who could be the traveling salesman himself, and the woman of the house had to make sure she had enough pins to last a whole year, or til the next time the traveling salesman would be coming around. You can be sure she took good care of those pins,too! After all, she had to sew everything for her family...pants,shirts, undergarments, towels, sheets and pillowcases, a baby's layette, curtains, aprons!...and usually she'd have to buy all her calicoes, shirting and domestics from him,too. Nowadays, when I think of "pin money", I think of it as a little extra money for some small luxuries. "Pin money" could also mean the custom of money pinned to a bride's wedding dress to start her out with...but that's a story for another day :D
So, take a minute and read the want ads in the Louisiana Market Bulletin that my Granny used to sew her quilt blocks to!





This is one of the old quilts blocks she made. Check out that poison green print and that pink print looks like it may have been feed sack...do I recall an apron made from that one?? why are there 2 red squares and 2 beige-ish squares? Did the 2 lighter ones used to be red, but faded?? Maybe....or maybe it was a planned design.








Look at these fabrics. All four of those triangle are red; maybe that other block meant to have different colored squares....the material looks to be mostly shirting. There's more of the poison green, but it doesn't border all edges of this block.


Some of the same fabric from the first block, but there's a little lavender striped fabric on this one.




A better shot of the green fabric.




Here's part of a quilt I started called Road to Florida. I only made one strip and must have gotten distracted by something shiny and forgot all about it. Looks like silverfish and mice got a hold if it. But check some of the fabrics. I made this in the early '80's......'82 or '83 when my daughter was a baby. I used some older fabrics from the '60's and '70's in it,too.

Here's another section. Just three pattern pieces that when sewn together creates a star.



One section...



A sample block I made years ago. Snow white muslin and pretty pastels. This one is called "Nose Gay". It's four Nose Gay blocks sewn together with the bottom tips of the cornucopia or cone touching in the center. This one was hand pieced.



This is another sample block I made, I think it's called "Whirlygig". It's handpieced, and it appears I used different scraps of muslin and some have changed colors over the years, and are different shades of white.


I cannot remember the name of this block for anything...but it would have been completed with just squares and triangles to make the block. A mouse found it and naturally started chewing in the center, lol.



I actually made a full sized coverlet from these yo-yo's, but I never lined it. It began falling apart so I turned a square into a tablecloth, and used some in crafts....I still have large pieces of it around here.


All of the blocks I made came from old quilt pattern magazines that shall remain nameless. Each quilt I finished and photographed and sent in was deemed not good enough and I promptly stopped those subscriptions! Yeah, that's pretty petty of me,lol :D But maybe they should word the rejection letters a little better for ultra sensitives like me P""" (um, that's a raspberry or bronx cheer there, LOL!!)

Well, I hope you enjoyed looking at the old ads and quilt blocks. Maybe someone out there can tell us the names of the other quilt blocks :D