A CLOUD OF QUILT PATTERNS: AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PATTERN IN BLOG FORM UPDATES & ADDITIONS BY BARBARA BRACKMAN

Monday, August 15, 2016

Golden Wedding Ring BlockBase #313


Mandy sent me this photo of a Golden Wedding Ring quilt in the collection of the Museum of American Folk Art, a gift of Robert Bishop who was the authority on wedding ring quilts.


She wanted to know more about the pattern. It's a fairly easy pattern to document as it's what I call a "designer pattern" rather than a traditional pattern, meaning a 20th- (or 21st-) century artist drew it and published it. No one made quilts in the design before the 1930s.


Here's an example I found online by Geneva Rankin Snowes, probably done in the 1970s.


It's #313 in BlockBase, designed by the Iowan Hubert VerMehren in the early 1930s.


VerMehren was quite a draftsman and he took
the plain old Double Wedding Ring and made it more complex.

Two for sale online a while ago
1950s-70s?

You can see there is some variation in the proportions.

Well, I know the next question is going to be:
Where can I get a pattern?


Not from me. I can't draw that well and the evidence is in BlockBase.
I wouldn't use that particular pattern.
But here is why the internet is so great.
Corrine at MustLoveQuilts is making one and she talked about her search for a pattern.

She found it in Georgia Bonesteel's book/package/club
Spinning Spools, published in the early 1990s.

Golden Wedding Ring from Spinning Spools Frills and Finery #6

And here's why books are so great: Spinning Spools included plastic templates. And it's still around  although long out of print.


Now all you have to do is find that pattern in the right notebook (there are 3). I bet somebody in your guild has it.


Mandy found templates for a variation for sale in Australia.


See the comments where we find that "The pattern was also published in Oxmoor House's Great American Quilts 1991 (Sandra O'Brien, ed.) pp. 82-85," which is very inexpensive in the used book market. Thanks, commenters.

I've seen references to the pattern lately as
"Triple Wedding Ring," but that smacks of a menage a trois,
which historically has not been proven to make anyone happy.
I think Golden Wedding Ring is preferred.

Here's a relative, but a different pattern.

with alas no BlockBase number.

9 comments:

  1. Thanks for all the info and pictures. I remember one of my aunts making a Golden Wedding Ring.

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  2. The pattern was also published in Oxmoor House's Great American Quilts 1991 (Sandra O'Brien, ed.) pp. 82-85.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks AdyQuilts for the pattern info... hope to track down a book.

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  3. Love that quilt. I scored a copy of Great American Quilts 1991 on Amazon for a penny plus $3.99 shipping. There were lots of copies if anyone else is interested.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Marybeth for the pattern info.... Hoping to get a copy soon.

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    2. Can I get a copy??
      I like it so much, but it's 2 years later!!
      i'm very interesting
      thank you

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  4. Thanks Barbara for the very interesting info about the Golden Double Wedding Ring Quilt and its history...

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  5. I pieced this in 1994, the pattern I used called it a Golden Double Wedding Rin Quilt. I found a book with the pattern still have book. My Mom passed in 1995 and I’ve just got back to hand quilting this winter, hope to finish soon. It is a king size and my favorite quilt but time consuming.

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  6. The pattern is also in Encyclopedia of classic Quilt Patterns by Leisure Arts (Oxmoor House), 2001, pages 142-146. ISBN 0-8487-2474-7. It has thinner rings, and lots of templates. However, it looks like the rings could be cut crosswise from strip sets, or paper pieced. They also look thinner than the original pattern.

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