Winifred Avery

Distributed by King Features Syndicate, Inc., ca. 1929-1936.
Pattern orders were addressed to Winifred Avery, 120 Liberty Street, New York City.

Most installments give instructions for hand-made dolls and other cloth objects such as A Tie-Cover for the Play-Pen Floor, a Pin-Cushion, Pickaninny Pillow, Dolly Door-Stop, Homemade Tabby-Cat, Mittens for the Kitchen, or A Basketful of Ever Useful Pot Holders.

Six elaborate and original quilt patterns were sprinkled in occasionally:  Cherry-Thieves Quilt (1933), Dandelion Quilt (1933), Gazelle Quilt (1933), Hearts and Flowers block for pillow (1934), Hearts and Flowers Quilt (1934), and Thymy Woodland Quilt with Pine Tree Border (1936).  It's not known if there were others.

Winifred S. Austin, born April 1886 in Indiana, daughter of Frank and Alice Austin, married Walter Roger Avery in Marion County, Indiana, April 16, 1922.  By 1930 they had moved to Scarsdale, Westchester County, New York, as did Frank and Alice Austin.  Walter Avery was a public utility engineer in Scarsdale.

The Winifred Avery name came to my attention several years ago when Merikay Waldvogel was preparing an exhibit of Bertha Stenge quilts in Chicago.  Among them was a gazelle quilt and, apparently, a newspaper clipping identifying it as a Winifred Avery design.  Merikay wrote asking if I knew anything about this quilt or the Avery name.  I didn't at the time but went on a hunt at NewspaperArchive.com and Ancestry.com and found that the Avery quilt designs are difficult to locate.

© Wilene Smith, September 10, 2010, all rights reserved

Four of these images are from Ancestry.com whose image viewer is not equal to the high quality of pdf files; the images cannot be manipulated and can only be saved as a full page jpeg file resulting in text that is fuzzy and difficult to read, then the wanted article cropped from it.

 The Dandelion Quilt

The Gazelle Quilt

 Hearts and Flowers pillow scanned from an original clipping

 Hearts and Flowers Quilt

Thymy Woodland Quilt with Pine Tree Border  "Ideal for Camp Use," the text suggests this as a camp quilt because it can easily be stitched by machine.  ("thymy" is defined as "fragrant with thyme")

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