Coloring

 

Good morning and how are you today?

Summertime is the time of enjoying and preserving fresh fruit!

Ruby Short McKim's "Fruit Basket Quilt" was a series quilt published in 1932. 

The pattern was meant to be appliqued and embroidered but this one was drawn and colored with crayon.

Coloring quilts with crayon was popular in the 1930s and beyond.  I actually don't know that I've ever seen a quilt or top that incorporated crayon "tinting" as it is sometime referred to that was made before 1930.

Ruby McKim was a big advocate of this technique.  This makes sense because many of her quilt patterns were made for or by children.  She sometimes often advertised tips about this technique:

"If you happen to be making a crayon colored quilt he would be better in the orange-tan and brown dog coloring..."

It makes sense that McKim endorsed this approach.  Many of her quilt patterns were for children and many children made her quilts (or at least the blocks).  I used to hear people laugh about some really flawed colored quilts but the truth is, it was probably made by a child.  

Coloring was popular enough that crayon manufacturers paid for advertising in women's sewing magazines:

1933 Needlecraft magazine ad.

Most of the time, the colored pieces were embroidered with a black outline.  When that didn't occur, the pattern could get lost like the one below and to the right.

I like to see how well people did with crayon, partially because it's not as easy as it looks and also because the Lehigh Valley is the home of Crayola Crayons factory.

The best tutorial about this technique is from Meg at Crabapple Hill designs.  You can see two different tutorials for coloring at the bottom of this page.

Have a safe and happy day!