Side By Side Sampler

Sandy F from Oregon sent a picture of her finished sampler.

"I have to say I loved doing the civil war block each Saturday.  After some thought I decided to go with a very simple setting, something a lady in those times might do.  I had read an article about the Sanitation Com. requesting quilts that would fit cots.  They wanted them 48" x 96".  So this is the size I made mine."

Sandy's inspiration: samplers of blocks without any sashing made by Ladies Aid Societies. This one is from the collection of the New England Quilt Museum. What looks like sashing is actually the binding of individually bound and quilted blocks whipped together.

 "I added three additional blocks to get the right amount. "
So her sampler is 11 blocks long by 5 wide = 55 blocks.

"I found this patch thru an online store and fit right in with my plan."

She also added a block from a quilt Nancy Hornback made for my book Civil War Women. We called it Jeff Davis's Daughter. See a blog post about that design here:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2011/05/civil-war-memory-quilts.html

See Debbie's block here:
http://woolnsails.blogspot.com/2012/04/davis-daughter-block-two.html

The side-by-side sampler is a set you see from the mid-19th-century on. It became quite popular towards the end of the century when published quilt patterns were widely available, giving quilters ready access to new designs. The quilt above with its greens fading to a pale olive looks to be about 1890-1910

Here's another side-by-side sampler with blocks of different sizes from the same time period. The side-by-side set, especially when the blocks are sized differently, creates an energetic, informal look.

Thanks for the pictures, Sandy. It's a great look!