Our 7th applique block in the Hospital Sketches block of the month
is Tennessee Rose.
Block #7 Peggy Sandfort
Central floral---here with 4 diagonal arms but only three of them repeat.
This asymmetrical pattern is generally called Rose of Sharon as in #31.52 in my Encyclopedia of Applique. The variation on the left below is much like the July pattern with 7 rotating motifs. These roses are asymmetrical with several repeating buds or leaves but a single stem off to one corner.
Marie Webster called this one Rose of Sharon in her 1915 book.
As did Ruby Short McKim about 1930
The pattern, unlike some of the others we are doing this year in the Hospital Sketches BOM, has a variety of forms. They are all numbered #31 in the Encyclopedia.
Here are a few:
Dated 1852, Mary Ann Poindexter
Collection of the D.A.R. Museum
From an album sampler dated 1860
From an Augusta Auction
Ruth Finley owned a similar quilt and called it
an "Early Rose of Sharon" in her 1929 book.
I subtracted a few things from the pattern for my
Hospital Sketches block.
Collection of the Historical Society of Plainfield.
New Jersey project & the Quilt Index.
This sampler dated 1857 has wreaths, 2 coxcomb & currants blocks, 2 triple tulips and a Whig rose/Rose of Sharon among the designs--several very popular designs and then some odd ones. (See center and upper corners.)
Although most examples are situated on the diagonal some
seamstresses oriented the block north and south.
As you can see there was much personalization of the design.
No hints that a specific pattern was somehow passed around.
The block on the north/south may be a weak clue to a later
19th-century date.
East Tennessee quilt from Case Antiques
Same block in both quilts. Pattern passed around in east Tennessee?.
As far as names....
The name Rose of Sharon was in use as a pattern name. I've found two references about 1870 but with no pictures.
An 1869 Ohio fair awarded 25 cents to Isabel Hunter for a
"Bed quilt, rose of sharon" and an 1878 work of fiction mentioned a Rose of Sharon, adding some quilting color to a humorous about country people.
Marie Webster showed a second old quilt (below) with the single diagonal stem
and called it Virginia Rose
Carrie Hall's Virginia Rose in the collection of the Spencer Museum of
Art at the University of Kansas, block from the 1930s
Woman's World magazine sold a pattern about the same time,
calling it Tennessee Rose.
From the West Virginia project and the Quilt Index.
Winner of the contest for the most outrageous example.
Second prize