Cloud of Quilt Patterns

Monday, August 10, 2020

Field of Daisies

Here's a pretty pattern with an art deco flair,

subject of discussion in July over at the Quilts: Vintage & Antique

Facebook group.

Field of Daisies is a Laura Wheeler

syndicated newspaper pattern that was first published

in 1935, published far and wide.

Opal Dodd Gott (1910-1992), about 1970

Preston, Missouri, a gift for her nephew who showed it to the Oregon Project.

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=6A-FD-86

Julie Silber had one to tempt us with---

Quite a tour-de-force of fussy-cut hexagons.

Virginia Berger recognized the border pattern right away

as she owns this version.

Hers is set in quartets on point, a very effective design.

This quilter knew what it was called.

The photo is from Mark French's ebay store. Julie bought

it from Mark and sold it to someone who like me

wants to know the name of the pattern.

I don't know why this hasn't caught on.

Banner headlines on quilts.

The San Jose Museum of Quilts has a similar quilt.

We'd guess most of these with the 1930s Nile green

are from the late 1930s.

It is in my Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns as #796

among the modernistic flowers. Here's the old version---I didn't quite get it right, missing

a seam & proportions are a bit off.

It didn't translate to BlockBase as well as you'd hope either.

I imported #796 from BlockBase to EQ8

and redrew a few lines...

Pretty close in a better pattern for an 8" block.

Proportions more accurate and shows the missing seam I

couldn't see in the original newspaper pattern.

Monday, August 3, 2020

Alice Brooks Design

A block that never made it to a finished quilt,

perhaps due to a little difficulty with that lower curved piece.

As Teddy Pruett has said:

If it's impossible to piece it's Laura Wheeler or Alice Brooks.

Alice is Laura's evil twin

(and Laura's pretty darn difficult herself)

My view of the diabolical duo, the imaginary designers

for what we pattern collectors used to call

The Old Chelsea Station Needlecraft Company.

I spent much of my lock-down time this spring finding new patterns for the new editions of my Encyclopedia/BlockBase package. I missed many Alice Brooks designs in the first and second editions.

This design would have met their criteria:

Innovative

Difficult to piece

Sure enough.

Why it doesn't have another seam in the corners to make

it a little easier to piece is a mystery.

Unless you consider the source.

You'd think they'd never pieced a quilt in their imaginary lives.

Three Patch will be in the new BlockBase and new Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns coming out soon. In case you should want to make one.

See another diatribe about Alice here.
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2020/01/alice-brooks-darn-her.html

And more about the new editions here:
https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2020/08/new-editions-encyclopedia-pieced.html

Monday, July 27, 2020

Feathered Stars in the Sashing

Donna Stickovich has quite a quilt collection.

She recently posted this one in the Quilts Vintage & Antique Facebook group.

It looks like the blocks are unpieced and all the pattern is in the sashing---

Construction difficult to show in a magazine so these plain block/pieced sash

designs haven't been recorded much.

It's a lot like this one from the Lockport Batting Company which they called A Kentucky Quilt in the mid-20th century.

You could make it as a block

but the idea of the pattern as sashing is probably more historically accurate.

Monday, July 20, 2020

Triple Rose Wreath

Quilt in the collection of the Denver Art Museum

Twentieth-century

Victorian Rose it's called

Maureen Franz's Briar Rose

The July pattern for Cassandra's Circle Block of the Month at

the Civil War Quilts blog features a rose with reverse appliqued detail.

Looking at roses with similar detail I realized I had pictures of three

that were rather unusual wreath designs.

A triple rose wreath

This one with detailed buds and a border of the same design once belonged to

collector Phyllis Klein, sold at Jenack Auctions.

Quilt perhaps signed by Christiann Drick Smith, 1866

Hughsville, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania

Smithsonian American Art Museum

https://www.si.edu/object/rose-sharon:saam_2013.67.1

Another quilt of the same nine wreaths but with a different appliqued border.

Wreaths aren't often based on 3 or 6 divisions but it works

A more complicated relative

UPDATE

Just last week Merikay Waldvogel saw this album sampler quilt dated 1860 in

Jonesborough, Tennessee with the rose, leaves and buds as a block.

Look at how the pink (not reverse appliqued) is added.

Monday, July 13, 2020

Wrench Variations

A pattern that look so familiar but it's unusual....

But not unique. Wish I could read those notes but apparently

this one with the pink sashing was made by a woman named Mary Cuthbert.

It's a close relative of the very popular design known as Monkey Wrench or Hole in the Barn Door,

BlockBase # 1850

Not quite the same as a Monkey Wrench.

A Monkey Wrench is an adjustable wrench, I guess because

you can monkey around with it.

All the blocks in this post look to be about 1900-1920.

It's an interesting design....

So I'm adding it to the revision we are doing of the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns

and BlockBase.

We are making progress on getting the book and the program

ready for a fall release.

Monday, July 6, 2020

Wilhelmina's Wheel

Quilt in an unusual design by Wilhelmina Schultz (1857-1942), Newhall, Iowa. The family who brought this quilt in for documentation at the Iowa project thought it dated from 1860-1890.

You could describe it as kind of a geometric wreath or a cog wheel. This one has 14 scallops around the wreath.