AFGHANS -- A WOMAN'S TEXTILE TRADITION

SMALL BOX OF OLD PATTERNS

Recently, a small box stuffed with patterns for quilts, afghans and needlepoint fell into my possession. As of today, I have not completely finished going through the material to see what all it contains but I recognized that most of the patterns were torn from pages of magazines dated during the 70s and 80s. That puts most of the box’s material in the range of 30 to 40 years old.

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Now why would a small cardboard box filled with this kind of stuff interest me? Well, it wouldn’t have maybe 30 or 40 years ago but now it does. Why?  About in the early 90s I attended an older woman’s estate sale and spied a colorful afghan. For some crazy reason I was smitten with the colors and the workmanship that had gone into it. As perhaps some of you know, I do like women’s handwork -- but usually in the form of quilts. Afghans had never really appealed to me -- I had an instant change of heart as I carried away the beautiful estate sale afghan.

1970S WOMAN'S DAY MAGAZINE ARTICLE ON GRANNY SQUARES 

Since that sale I have been attempting (at a slow pace) to find out more about afghans. This box of patterns would perhaps contribute answers to several of the questions I had regarding them.

Old books about constructing afghans can be found in the library. But, they do not include what were some of the popular patterns over the past years -- or the social history surrounding them. So finding torn-out pages from magazines like Woman’s Day and McCall’s Patterns in the box gave me a snippet of information of what seemed to be popular --  it appeared that the crocheted granny square was the winner since the 70s and perhaps before? Or perhaps since I found this box in Kentucky, the granny square only reflects what was popular here?

BORDER DESIGN OF AFGHAN BELOW
UNIDENTIFIED PATTERN

Over the years the type I came to prefer were the granny squares. Also, I gravitate toward afghans with fringeless borders that are patterned with earthy colors of yarn. Many Kentucky quilts have earthy colors and I am assuming that perhaps their colors influenced Kentucky made afghans. 

After all these years, since I first found that afghan, I feel I am just at the starting line of figuring out their patterns --  knitted or crochet styles, and other attributes of  these wonderfully worked afghans.

UNIDENTIFIED AFGHAN PATTERN WITH CURVY BORDER

Perhaps, you have made afghans or someone in your family has. I do not have the ability to make such textiles as quilts or afghans. I can however stand back and admire afghans for what they represent. I label them in the category of woman’s traditions. They evidently have a role in women’s cultural history but little seems to be documented.