Four Patch 1: Just Plain Four Patch

Can I find a quilt for every pattern drawn in BlockBase?

We'll find out.

The Four Patches should be easy.

Especially those pieced of squares only.

Here's #1101, the basic four equal squares

About 1900

Blocks set on point with alternate plain squares

Same time, set on point with red sashing strips.

Ann Hermes has a pair of Pennsylvania pillowcases

in her Etsy store---mid-century.

What's the oldest four patch I have on file?

This one's dated 1830.

Alternate plain white squares with plain whites in the four patches too.

I was surprised I couldn't find any earlier example---

Nine patches seem to have been much more popular before 1830.

Then there's this variation

BlockBase #1103. Carrie Hall called it a Four-Patch

but I'd call it a Double Four Patch today.

That's the name I used to do a web search for some of these.

Supposed to be date-inscribed 1876.

All #1103

I'm surprised I haven't any vintage versions of #1105, which the Kansas

City Star published as the Carrie Nation Quilt

MsDolittle did one for my Grandmother's Choice Block of the Week

a few years ago.

I made one with my niece Natasha in 1987.

And one for her niece Sophia about 10 years ago.

#1107 A Nine Patch in a Four Patch

from about 1880.

I have seen a lot more four patches set in a nine patch

than I've seen of this pattern--- #1107.

Here's a great simple four patch:

#1107 alternating with a plain old four patch #1101.

From the Rick Rack Blog.

See a free pattern for a variation at my regular blog here:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2016/11/double-four-patches-in-morris-earthly.html

I thought I didn't have a number for this interesting repeat

but I'm calling it a variation of #1104

if it's a double four patch and shaded like this.

Farm Journal called it Squares Upon Squares.

Set on point it could make a Valentine.

Fredonia Cross and Ladies' Fancy

One of my favorite patterns.

This version of a fan and a nine patch is from

the mid-20th century.

The name:

Ladies' Fancy, which was first published in 1884 in Farm & Fireside magazine...

And republished by the Ladies' Art Company

with the same name in one of their early catalogs.

Thirties?

The Nebraska project documented this one which also looks

like high-style 1930s design.

A variation, a little older.

BlockBase #2001 called Around the World in the Kansas City Star.

My computer program BlockBase shows three related patterns:

2001, 2002, and 2003

# 2003 From the Iowa project and the Quilt Index

This pattern with the spiky fan blades wasn't published with a name until the 1970s when Mrs. Danner's Quilts in Kansas sold a pattern she called Fredonia Cross because the vintage quilt she drew the pattern from came from Fredonia, Kansas.

But about a hundred years earlier quilters were using the pattern

in the South. This one's from Tennessee project.

A variation that's more a wheel than a nine patch.

The pattern seems a simplification of the Rocky Mountain design.

You could see how this popular Southern pattern

might get modified.

1880-1910?

Another one from the Tennessee project

This one with a different proportion is from the

Connecticut project

\

An example with a four-patch in the center from

the Oregon project.

BlockBase will print the block any size you like

so you can piece the arcs over paper.

I found most of the examples of #2003 here in the Quilt Index by typing in the word Fredonia at the top right in the search box. 

http://www.quiltindex.org/search.php

Wasn't Groucho Marx president of Fredonia in Duck Soup?

Oh, that was spelled differently: Freedonia.

Ladies's Fancy, indeed.