Another Perfect 1930s Double Wedding Ring

The Double Wedding Ring pattern was sure popular in the 1930s!  This spring, I've had two here for repairs in the same month.  When I blogged about the first one, I called it a perfect quilt - hence the name of this post.

Both have the same characteristics, including a huge variety of pastel print scraps and great needlework.  Here they are side-by-side, so you can see how they are alike and how they differ.  I always think it's great fun to compare and contrast the design choices that make each rendition of a pattern unique.

    

I'll call the one of the left (more info in a previous post) the pink quilt, and the one on the right the purple quilt.

The pink quilt continues using scraps in the 4-patches where the rings intersect instead of adding solid colors.  That lets the rings be complete, intersecting circles that flow calmly across the quilt.  On the purple quilt, the solid color accent squares create a more lively look, a counterpoint rhythm with the scrappy arcs. 

I'm incredibly fond of the combination of these green and purple squares.  I like green and purple together in general, but these particular 1930s versions of these colors are as good as it gets as far as I'm concerned.

You may also notice that the pink quilt has a thicker batting which shows off the quilting much more clearly.  Both quilts use the very same quilting pattern.

The soft mint green backing fabric on the purple quilt is a bit gentler than the bright pink back on the pink quilt.  Both backing choices are great compliments to the fabrics in the patchwork.

The edge treatments are also different.   The pink quilt has a more common edge: big scallops and a narrow bias binding.  The purple quilt continues having complete 4-patches along the edges, making a more complex shape.  Rather than trying to manipulate a binding around all those sharper corners, this quilt is finished with a knife-edge, i.e front and back fabrics turned in towards one another and whip stitched shut.

More about the purple quilt:  The owner thinks it was made for his mother, Mary (aka Peg), by her mother Lydia and Aunts Tillie and Ella (who Peg called LaLa).  They lived in Holdredge, Nebraska, and were farmers' wives.  Peg came to Chicago to study nursing at Augustana School of Nursing.

The quilt is in good shape.  I repaired only a few spots where a couple of fabrics were weakening faster than the rest.  I also washed the quilt.  It had some grey soil on the reverse.  The front didn't look too bad, but the quilt had obviously not been washed in quite a while.  The wash water came out quite a bit browner than I had expected!  Here's a bird's-eye-view of the quilt soaking in the tub.

 

The rings feature a few cheery (as always!) conversation prints.

I'd love to see a large piece of that last print.  I wonder if we'd find out where that little guy is off to in such a hurry!