Mexican Rose

Quilt signed 

"Jane Barr July 1849"

Collection of the Smithsonian Institution

I don't know what Jane Barr called her pattern, but we'd all agree

it's a Mexican Rose...

A name first published by the Ladies Art Company perhaps in their 1898 catalog

of quilt patterns.

Also published as Mexican Rose by Marie Webster

in her 1915 book Quilts

It's #22.41 in my book Encyclopedia of Applique,

categorized as a four plus four block: Four motifs alternating

with four other motifs rotating from a central point.

The major characteristics are the simplicity of the north/south 

units, which can be a diamond or a leaf shape

The corner florals on long stems tend to be multi-petaled and viewed 

from the side. 

With variation possible

Crib quilt

Lots of extra applique from a mid-19th century quilt from the

 Shelburne Museum's collection

From Fourth Corner Antique Quilts

We owe to Webster our connection of the pattern to "stirring frontier activities...Mexican Rose...reflecting domestic interest in important events..." Presumably she is talking of the Mexican War in the late 1840s to gain territory from Mexico.

I'm afraid that Webster's story cannot be substantiated with any evidence that the design was called Mexican Rose in the 1840s when it first appeared or that it had any connection to that war.

In 1906 a writer who saw it as a daisy

wrote a short article about making a sofa pillow

of red, yellow and green silk. The pattern was

copied by several newspapers.

As we can see by Jane Barr's quilt the pattern is decades older.

The example in the Benton County, Oregon, museum

has a border made of the daisies.

Attributed to Mary Ann Myers in Mississippi, documented in 

the Texas Project

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4F-88-FE

Once the pattern appeared in print it became popular.

The North Carolina Project found several examples from

the end of the 19th century and perhaps into the 20th.

By Mary Margaret Miller

By M. E. Williams, in

the collection of the North Carolina Museum of History

Colored sashing is typical in this group.

Berks County, Pennsylvania, sampler, late 19th century

The pattern's not often used as a sampler block until after it

was published about 1890. You don't see it in mid-19th-century albums.

The design was also quite fashionable in the Miami Valley

sampler/albums made in Ohio about 1900.

The ELI quilt from the 1890s in the collection

of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum

Like the eagles in this group of quilts, the Mexican Rose variation

was practically a necessity

It's an easy pattern for beginner applique.

Print this out on an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet of paper for a pattern of sorts. It would fit in a 20" finished block.As you can see by all the examples, red and green is probably the traditional fabric choice.