String Pieced Lone Star

 

Polyester String Quilt

I don't know if a pattern has ever been published for this whole top design

 of string-pieced diamonds. But it's a pattern you often come across.

It's one of the new numbers in the third edition of the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.

I sent the drafters this sketch.

4005.8

Unnamed

Source: Common String Quilt

In this edition I added many designs that are common

but do not (yet) have a published source.

Here's their fix from the page proofs.

Amelia Etta Atkins (1879-1965)

from the Tennessee project & the Quilt Index

Most of these are from online auctions.

 Bertha Virginia Riddick from

the Michigan project & the Quilt Index.

Does it have a name?

Variation, not indexed.

Squares in a Triangle

 

Jane posted this mid-20th-century quilt top in the Facebook group

  Quilts:Vintage & Antique looking for a pattern name.

We were no help.

I did find relatives, however.

The theme is squares in a half-square triangle.

Classified as a two patch with a diagonal seam down the center of the block.

Jane's has six squares.

I found quite a range of dates on the idea, but no published patterns.

1860-1880? top

Three squares

1870-1890?

One square

15 Squares in some prints that look to be about 1910

Same time but 6 squares

10 squares from the mid-20th century

maybe 1960-1980?

Conventional Lily

Quilt from the Kuska Collection at the Thomas County, Kansas

Historical Museum

Hard to date.

Close fancy quilting, post-1880s greens fading to khaki or dun color.

From my Encyclopedia of Applique

Could it be as late as 1928 when Comfort magazine

published a pattern?

Comfort was quite influential in maintaining a small

and rather regional fashion for red and green appliques

into the 20th century.

If it's so "Conventional" how come these are the only two references to the pattern I can find?

Addition to the 3rd Edition

 

Here's an addition in the third edition of my Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.

Originally, the Encyclopedia was meant to be an index to patterns published and named before 1970 but in the latest edition I added dozens of designs that hadn't been published as far as I could tell, patterns common enough that they NEEDED a number.

Like this one from the Lambertville, New Jersey Historical Society

and the Quilt Index.

 

It's now got a number: #1527.5

Among its published relatives.

It's a variation on the classic Melon Patch or Orange Peel that goes

way back.

The pattern has close relatives of a slightly different construction.

Many early 19th-century quiltmakers used a variation.

From the Connecticut project & the Quilt Index

But the block and seam lines are different.

This is #1519

Here's one way to look at the quilt above from the 1830's.

But that's not the repeat. There are no seams going through

those large squeezed squares.

When you get your new edition you are going to have to write in on page 178 under 1527.5

"See 1519."

And vice versa.

It's always a work in progress.

You don't have to wait for the new BlockBase to get a pattern. Here's one for

a 15" Four Patch.

Early 19th-c quilt from the Nichols family, Newark, New Jersey,

Newark Museum

UPDATE: Laura Lane at the New England Quilt Museum sent a photo of a mini she made from

a Jo Morton pattern.

And I remembered I'd made an appliqued mini too, interpreting a New England quilt in the Spencer Museum collection for an AQSG Quilt Study.

Path o' Gizzards

 

Texas Etsy dealer Shelby Anderson had this striking red and white quilt for sale at Shelby's Quilts.

It looks to be early-20th century or maybe late-19th by the prints---not much

to go on here. Is it pieced or appliqued?

Figuring out the repeat:

Here's the basic unit

set alternately dark on light and light on dark,

counterchange shading.

Shelby has called it a Drunkard's Path but it's not; it's more a Hearts & Gizzards

design. #1503 in the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.

A post with relatives:

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2012/02/hearts-and-gizzards.html

Grandma Dexter's Orange Peel

 

Question:

Pattern name. Found in friend Linda's estate. Merikay looked it up

in my Encyclopedia of Applique and it's not in there.

Hmmm. It's familiar and I stared at it for a while. Who would draw

up a pattern like that ? It should be pieced but it's appliqued.

Grandma Dexter, that's who.

Sure enough, here it is as Orange Peel.

The problem is that it's not in the applique Encyclopedia where

it belongs, but in the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns where

for some obscure reason it is #3539 and it says "applique."

It's related to the many pieced patterns like this but.....

Grandma Dexter did not do the needlework world any good with

her pattern books.

People who had few sewing skills tried to figure out what "she" meant. Her theory was that all you

needed was a few pattern pieces and you could create a variety of blocks by appliqueing what would have been better pieced.

This was an efficient use of paper

Eek!

And don't be calling in with any questions or complaints.

Jonathan Winters in his slightly terrifying Maude Frickert personality

captures the whole idea of a diabolical art department masquerading

as your Grandma.

1934 Wilmington Delaware News Journal

And to complicate matters I see I have this one "Painted Snowball" indexed as coming from the Nancy

Cabot column in the Chicago Tribune. This is not Nancy Cabot? But who is it? 

UPDATE: Wilene Smith tells me it is Nancy Cabot from one of the syndicated patterns.

If I'd a been working in the art department at Grandma

Dexter's I'd have drawn this up in Electric Quilt and

shown them what it is supposed to look like. Here's an

8" pattern.