Quilt Details
Size: Throw
Dimensions: 50″ × 66″
Completed: 2022
Techniques: Patchwork, foundation piecing, and appliqué
Materials: 100% cotton scraps
Batting: 80/20 cotton-polyester blend
Quilting: Edge-to-edge clamshell pattern, quilted on a domestic sewing machine
Design: World’s Fair pattern from Time-Honored Traditions: Replicate Classic Quilts of Centuries Past by Annette Plog
The Story
I was looking for a traditional quilt pattern when I came across World’s Fair in Annette Plog’s book Time-Honored Traditions: Replicate Classic Quilts of Centuries Past. It immediately caught my attention because it wasn’t like the other traditional patterns I had seen. Based on a modified Bear Claw, it had a wonderfully scrappy quality that appealedQuil to me.
Plog speculates that the original World’s Fair quilt may have been designed to commemorate the 1876 World’s Fair in Philadelphia. The quilt pictured in the book featured the distinctive “poison green” associated with nineteenth-century quilts. I kept that wonderful green for the sashing, then made the rest of the quilt my own, pulling fabrics from my scrap collection.
I quilted it with an edge-to-edge clamshell pattern on my domestic sewing machine—long before I had access to a longarm. The result is a quilt that connects an old pattern with my own quilting journey: a little bit of history interpreted through my own scraps.
