A CLOUD OF QUILT PATTERNS: AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PATTERN IN BLOG FORM UPDATES & ADDITIONS BY BARBARA BRACKMAN

Monday, November 19, 2018

Aeroplanes

This airplane quilt was supposedly found after flying around in the tornado in Joplin, Missouri a few years ago. Let's hope it's been re-united with its owner by now.


Ragi Marino who has written the book on airplane quilts Flying High: The Airplane in Quilts used the same pattern when she made a copy of a crib quilt in her collection for the 2012 AQSG Quilt Study on Colonial Revival Quilts. Her pattern may have been the earliest of the patchwork airplanes, The Lone Eagle Quilt, designed by Emma S. Tyrrell for Successful Farming in January, 1929. The alternate block with the eagle has been done in embroidery and quilting.

Stella Rubin has one for sale with the quilted eagle.

Collector Joanna Rose showed one in her Infinite Variety show
a few years ago. It's hard to see the eagle in the quilting but it's there.

The New England Quilt Museum's airplane quilt also looks to have that quilting
but again it's hard to see.


In 1933 the Aunt Martha pattern company offered a pattern just for the plane in their catalog The Quilt Fair Comes To You. They called it Aeroplane and said "This shows the modern trend and explains how many designs originate." Copying patterns? I doubt that's what they meant but that airplane was such a good idea many pattern companies copied it.

Laura Fisher's Inventory

This pattern (with propeller in various places)
was quite popular



An all appliqued version honoring famous pilots was
sold as a block collection in an online auction a few years ago.


There's a subcategory

Kansas Project & the Quilt Index

Airplanes with circles and/or stars on the wings

International Quilt Study Center & Museum collection

From the Minnesota project & the Quilt Index
Must have been made during World War II,

From the Detroit News in the 1930s
Sent in by a reader of their pattern feature.

The News had their own pattern for
their quilt club, a fat little plane with a triangular tail.

This design (BlockBase #902) was published by
several sources.


With its nine-patch format it was a popular pattern.

Add a wide white sashing and blue corner squares
to create nine patches.

Texas project & the Quilt Index
Friends of  Ophelia Parker Bloys signed blocks with appliqued propellers for
a bridal shower quilt in 1939.

From Julie Silber's inventory. Blocks on the diagonal.

Massachusetts project & the Quilt Index
Planes on the diagonal, blocks on the straight.

Capper's Weekly published this pattern with a pieced propeller in 1930.
BlockBase #903.


 The Kansas City Star copied it in 1940.
This is one of the first quilts I made, and an article about airplane patterns is one of the first I published for Quilters' Newsletter in the 1970s.

A friendship quilt from 1933-1937 Claudell Grade School



Monday, November 12, 2018

Under-Represented Floral Design

Bouquet: Triple Flower on a stem, Roundish floral

Does it have an Encyclopedia of Applique Number?
NO!
Bettina has brought this to my attention with her question:

Pattern name?

Not in the book.

Although it is such a basic pattern structure it should be.

I recently came across a 1928 pattern by Emma S. Tyrrell in Wallace's Farmer. She called it Lily and said she'd drawn the pattern from an old quilt that had been used as a mattress pad.


And here it is as Cosmos in Woman's World with several other applique designs.





From Benoni Pearce's 1850 sampler in the Smithsonian

The all-appliqued version is related to the pieced/appliqued
Cleveland Lily types, which were far more common.

From the Flack collection

Pepper Cory owns this one with a variegated star/flower.
Place to stick in some extra chrome orange.

Ebay and online

Well, here's a discovery. Twin quilts---fraternal not identical
Note borders & 5-lobed florals


Great variation in Terry Thompson's collection




You see a lot more of the bouquets with a central floral
focus. There are plenty of these and they have a number:

#31.52 Rose of Sharon from Carrie Hall & Rose Kretsinger's book.



So, Bettina, not much information on the pattern.
But a good excuse to look at some red and green applique.

Monday, November 5, 2018

Clara Stone's Cross & Crown

An unusual pattern

The major seam line is horizontal dividing it
into two units.

See the green line

It's in BlockBase as a "Realistic" pattern, #949.7,
published by Clara Stone about 1910 as
Cross & Crown.

UPDATE: Wilene Smith, the expert on the Clara Stone group writes:
"This design was first published February 1899 in one of the papers of the 'Hearth and Home' group. 'Clara Stone' was one of 23 currently known pseudonyms created and used by the needlework editor of the papers. This design was among the nearly 300 designs chosen for the 'Clara Stone catalog' in 1905 and released in the Spring of 1906."
This Christian metaphor may have been designed just for the Clara Stone pattern line.

It seems to have been relatively popular, particularly in the South. I'm guessing this one of solid
colors with that distinctive strip sashing is Southern.

Made by Ellen Love, North Carolina project and the Quilt Index

None of the pictures I've seen look to pre-date the published pattern.

A different way of constructing the block

And here it is as a lone block, constructed like
a tile quilt with patches appliqued to the background
and the background showing through.

Clara Stone, a pattern group out of Massachusetts,  influenced quiltmakers all over the country.