Cherry Tree quilt auctioned at Pook & Pook in 2013
George Washington's been linked with a cherry tree in the minds of many generations. While we all know it's an "Alternate Fact" we still celebrate President's Day with cherry trees.
Quilt from the same pattern, James Julia Auctions.
This Cherry Tree quilt pattern appeared in the Ladies Home Journal in 1922.
The magazine offered a Tree Design for Applique Quilt pattern in a 1924 catalog.
Cherry Tree & Robins Quilt
About 76" square
Their original photo and pattern inspiration was a quilt in the Emma B. Hodge collection
at the Art Institute of Chicago. Hodge donated the quilt in 1919.
Hodge and the curators there thought it might date to the first half of the 19th century, but looking at the photos available now it seems obvious the Hodge quilt dates to 1880-1900.
The green leaves have faded to tan, a good clue to the era
of the early synthetic dyes when colors were so fugitive.
Many quilters were inspired to try the rather challenging four-block.
Quilt from the Byron Family, Colonial Williamsburg Collection.
Another from the Pook & Pook Auction site, bound with prairie points.
It looks like the maker copied the Hodge quilt colors
but she might have had the same kind of
fugitive green.
From Vycki Jackson's collection. She found it in Illinois.
From Pook & Pook Auction
Dated 1933, by Helen Knaack, Arizona Quilt Project
and the Quilt Index.
A basted top with a wonderful cherry border.was recently sold online.
In my Encyclopedia of Applique it's # 57.5
"Cherry Trees-Paragon kit, a copy of a quilt ca.1850 in the Art Institute of Chicago"
But the Paragon version is much simpler than the LHJ version.
Collection of the International Quilt Study Center & Museum,
Gift of Pat Cox. Probably made from the Paragon pattern.
Below are two patterns of sorts for anyone inspired to try the Cherry Tree.
Print them out at 8" but you'd want to stitch at 200% or 250%.
George's Cherry Tree with Birds,
reproduction block by Barbara Burnham
from her Baltimore Garden Quilt book.
For fewer cherries see the pattern
Barbara Burnham found in a mid-19th-century sampler here:
View the Art Institute's Quilt that inspired the whole revival here:
http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/76056?search_no=1&index=60