Quilts during this era were products of both consumer culture and a make-do culture. The many existing quilts from the 1930s reflect the great number of quiltmakers who adapted the widely circulating patterns and advice that promoted quilting as a simultaneously “colonial” and thrifty activity.  Yet because of the prominent role mass media had in the dissemination of quilt patterns, the hundreds of thousands of quilts made with commercially published patterns or from kits resulted in many homogeneous designs. Some quintessential Depression-era patterns were published repeatedly, like Grandmother’s Flower Garden, Dresden Plate, and Double Wedding Ring. Although scraps were indeed a necessity for some quiltmakers, for others, it was fashion. Quilt historian Barbara Brackman likens scrap quilts to popular china settings of the same era, like Fiestaware, makers of which encouraged mismatched colors. Brackman further notes that Sears Roebuck and other mail-order companies sold boxes of printed cotton scraps along with patterns for making Double Wedding Ring and Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilts. Magazines advertised bundles of “factory cut-aways”—the odd-shaped fabric pieces leftover at factories that produced clothing.  Even quiltmakers without their own scrap bags could execute quilts that displayed the values and aesthetics of frugality and reuse.