marie webster

My February One monthly Goal was to spend some time every day, to work on my American Beauty Rose quilt designed by Marie Webster in the early 1900s. 

I was able to cut, and sew  most of the quilt and have completed 2 blocks and one more will be finished by the end of the month. I am very happy with the results. At this point, I plan to  prepare a few blocks for the hand stitching and leave it by my chair in the living room. Then, I can just put in a few stitches when time allows. 

"Marie Webster's quilts have been favorites of quilt makers ever since they were published over 80 years ago, and all quilt makers owe her a debt. Her designs... sparked a revolution in quilt design on the heels of the arts and crafts movement and the colonial revival, which emphasized the return to simpler traditions and handmade objects. Webster's quilts, the first to be published in color in Ladies Home Journal, were based on floral patterns which 'revitalized the art of applique with fresh new forms and a palette of pastel colors that would become the hallmark of American quilts in the 1920s and '30s.'

 Marie Webster was born in 1859 in a small town in rural northern Indiana..She married a successful businessman, George Webster, in 1884, and following an extended honeymoon the couple settled in Chicago. A few years later, the Webster’s moved to George’s home town of Marion, Indiana, a manufacturing center.  She had been embroidering household linens since she was a child, but did not make her first quilt until 1909, when she was 50 years old. Becoming a quilt enthusiast, she found the popular geometric pieced quilts not to her liking, and so applied her own patterns.  In the January 1, 1911 issue, Editor Edward Bok featured four full-color quilt designs of the amateur Marie Webster. With a circulation of over 1.5 million readers, the magazine made Marie Webster a household name. Readers wrote her for patterns. Within one month of the Ladies Home Journal publication, Webster was selling her quilt patterns for 50 cents. Her fame spreading, the New York publisher Doubleday, page & Co. invited Marie Webster to write a book on the history of quilting. Tracing the history back to ancient Egypt and up to America, Webster completed the book, which was published in 1915 as Quilts: Their Story and How to Make Them.

In 1921 she formed, with two friends, The Practical Patchwork Company, and her manufacture of quilt patterns evolved into a true cottage industry. "

I am linking to:

Making Monday

Moving it Forward Monday 

 Patchwork Times

Main Crush Monday

 and One monthly Goal