Originally Posted by bearisgray
The question was for best SELLING - - -
I have no idea how to find that out - and for how far back?
The first patterns sold were advertised and published in newspapers in the early years of the 1900s and were sold for small amounts of change - like 5 and 10 cents. The postage was a penny or two....
I rather suspect that the question has no real answer...
because the records just may not have been kept.
If the question is : "Which patterns were most made?"
Then it is probably the nine patch.
The early pioneer quilts were scrappy, and hand sewn, using one cut out square of fabric as the pattern, keeping it, and placing it on a scrap, and cutting carefully around it, and keeping the cut out pieces, perhaps sewing them together until the quilt was big enough.