Carlie Sexton's Rose of Sharon

A four-block pattern with a Caesar's Crown variation in the center.

Made by Mary Claypool Moore

Arizona project & the Quilt Index

Online Auction

All the examples in my files seem to come from this Carlie Sexton pattern.

Sexton ran a pattern business in the teens into the 1930s.

Here's her original vintage version.

It's #17.34 in my Encyclopedia of Applique

Here's one from Susan Price Miller's collection.

She's the expert on Carlie Sexton.

Read her AQSG paper here at the Quilt Index:

http://www.quiltindex.org/journals/article.php?Akid=2-B-D7

Blocks plus border

UPDATE: Jerrianne in Texas emailed a photo of a quilt the Lakeview Quilters are selling at their annual auction on August 20th. Jerrianne's sister bought the top at a guild auction in Corsicana, Texas a while ago and donated the top to the guild for last year's auction.

 The borders were a mess. They guess the maker tried to design her own border but she couldn't get it to fit so she never sewed it on. Jerrianne worked on the border, moving pieces and making some new ones. Jean stitched the borders and Cindy Gravely did a fabulous job of quilting it.

"The edge of the background fabric has “Honor-Pure Finish” stamped in red. Via a web search, we found the fabric is J C Penney Co in 1925. Sold for 15¢ per yard."

And you can buy this recently restructured Rose of Sharon. The Lakeview Quilters auction is August 20, 2018. Check it out here:

https://www.lakeviewquiltersguild.org/auction-2018

The block's got got everything.

Checkerboard Trees

Pictorial tree designs were popular after 1880 or so.

But the tree tops are usually pieced of triangles.

Checkerboard tree tops are a subcategory.

"Little Beach Tree" 

(I think she meant Beech tree)

The Ladies's Art Company first offered a pattern about 1890.

The Ladies's Art sold several interesting tree designs.

Ruby McKim drew a pattern for the Kansas City Star

in the late 1920s...

which may have been the inspiration for the sampler block

with name embroidered. It's constructed as a four patch.

A variation.

Carrie Hall's version from the Spencer Museum collection

More checkerboard trees from BlockBase

Dolores Hinson designed this one for her book Quilters Companion

and called it Tree of Temptation. The four patch squares are apples.

Different construction from Carrie Hall's book. She called it

Tree of Temptation---red squares are apples. See pattern below.

Hall left just a few quilts and one of them was inspired by a newspaper design to

celebrate the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birth.

1932, Lydia LeBaron Walker

This version is also an apple tree, the symbol of the truthful first President

who is supposed to have said "I cannot tell a lie."

Washington Bi-Centennial Quilt by Carrie Hall, 1932

Spencer Museum of Art.

 BlockBase measurements for a 16" block for Hall's Tree of Temptation.

Use green and white polka dots and you have Apple Blossoms

Pineapple with Dots

By Louiza Gibson Simmons from the files of the Birmingham Public Library 

& the Alabama Decorative Arts Survey.

Here's one of my favorite concepts. A pineapple appliqued of dots

(or maybe it's a pomegranate since pineapples don't have visible seeds).

Whatever the fruit it's a perky pattern

From the Texas project---with sashing.

Quiltmaker Mary Louise Hammonds Bollman told interviewers she'd inherited an old quilt in the design and made this reproduction in 1937.

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4F-88-124

But before you get to thinking it's a Southern design....

Someone posted this sad version seen at a sale in New York

Online auction. Basic four-block

Most look roughly 1840-1880.

Design characteristics----

• Central Floral
• Identical 4 arms extending diagonally
• A fruit with dots and a scalloped edge

Three of the four above have the same leaves.

Here's one in a pot, date-inscribed 1859. Perhaps quilted later.

I first noticed the dotted fruit in a group of quilts

from Garrard County, Kentucky, like this one in the collection of the

Denver Art Museum.

Although they are not set as all over block repeats.

Similar Kentucky quilt from the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

The pineapples sometimes go over the seam lines.

A digital sketch. Double the size for an 18-22" block.

See more about the Garrard County quilts and related patterns at this post:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2012/02/garrard-county-kentucky.html

Melon: Fruit Salad

Quilt that looks to be late 19th century, possibly early 20th, dated

due to the solid color fabrics with the greens fading to tans

And probably Southern due to the use of solid colors and the pattern.

It has a number in my Encyclopedia of Applique. It's a variation on 13.31 and 13.32,

Watermelon or Melon Patch

The earliest published reference I found was in Marguerite Ickis's 1959 The Standard Book of Quilt Making and Collecting in which she showed this black and white photo of a Kentucky quilt. She also showed a drawing of a similar design (It's drawn too skinny).

Richland County, South Carolina from Social Fabric

The South Carolina documentation project found this quilt called Watermelon. My drawing of it is too skinny too. A watermelon is a plump fruit.

  

I haven't many photographs of the design, skinny or plump.

Here are a few from online auctions.

Design characteristics include a central flower and four identical arms on the diagonal. The outside edge of that fruit is scalloped. Watermelons do not have scalloped edges---but they are red and green.

The pattern is similar to a far more popular design called Tobacco Leaf and sometimes Pineapple

Tobacco Leaf by Betty Meek McKenzie from the

 Louisiana Project & the Quilt Index

That pattern is more complex with leaves that make the pattern look more like a pineapple (pineapples do have scalloped edges) and four arcs outlining the design.

The whole thing is an exercise in scallops, possibly cut free hand.

If you remove the leaves and the arcs you have the block in question.

And speaking of scallops here is a watermelon with extra scallops anywhere she could fit them.

Inclined to cut scallops? Print this out at 8" for a drawing of

a quarter of a design that would fit in a block of about 14".

A variation.

This one's beautifully quilted but again the fabrics make one think

late-19th century. 

I thought the block would be on the diagonal like the others.

But you can see faint seam lines and it seems to have been constructed like the block below.

Why?

I cannot say.