Crib Quilts and Other Small Wonders

If you are like me and would like to make Circus Quilt, the pattern can be found in the book
Crib Quilts and Other Small Wonders
by Thos. K. Woodward and Blanche Greenstein
Available on Amazon.com

This is a wonderful book to keep in your library and to peruse.
Including 150 color plates, curators Woodward and Greenstein give a detailed history of each vintage quilt and provide several patterns, including Circus Quilt.
What mother hasn't made or received a crib quilt with the birth of a child?
I found the history included in the book as interesting as the quilts themselves.
Did you know that there have been many strong opinions on how to make crib quilts over the years?
"Readers of The House Book published in 1840, were instructed to use two discarded silk dresses to make a 'light and convenient article' for a child's crib, especially useful in a 'sickroom' as a moral booster. For reasons unexplained by the author, the quilt was meant to be quilted only in large diamonds, and in another passage, patchwork quilts of old calicoes were declared unfit for use anywhere except in 'inferior chambers' where they would work well for the servants' beds." (pg 86)
I've always held a romantic notion that it would have been wonderful to live in the 1800's.
As a quilter, I think I far prefer the 2000's where there are not so many do's and don'ts in the quilting world.