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.

Cherry Wreaths

Two wreaths with dots

There are not many of them in my Encyclopedia of Applique,

mainly because they weren't published as patterns before 1970,

 although there are plenty of them in vintage quilts.

Most people see them as Cherry Wreaths.

My pictures are primarily from details in mid-19th-century album quilts,

particularly in Baltimore,

which is why the pictures are so poor.

Details, details, details.

A couple from Stella Rubin's album inventory

Maybe no pattern company published them because they are so simple, a leaf, a dot and a circle template with embroidered stems and bows optional.

Or maybe no one ever had the heart to write directions that said

for 12 blocks cut 480 cherries.

APQ has a free pattern download. Search for Cherry Wreath APQ

Crib quilt from a 1980 advertisement from Kiracofe & Kile,

Pennsylvania

A reproduction by 

 Edith May Lawson, 1984,

documented by the Indiana project.

You might think it needs something in the center....

Here's the most ambitious.

From Sue Garman's blog. She called it Flower Circle.

Much like one in the Ken Burns collection.

The basics.

Found this leafless wreath floating around in cyberspace.

New? Old?

H-h-h-hard to see the H's

There was a question about this colorful mid-20th-century top.

Pattern name?

I didn't recognize it but once I parsed it out I realize it is a Kansas 

City Star pattern

"4-H Club Quilt"

from 1932

Carrie Hall pieced it in Four-H Colors.

From the Helen F. Spencer Museum of Art

Four H is a club for rural kids interested in agriculture, biology, crafts, home arts etc.

Here's their trademark

4-H project dress from the 1930s displayed at the

Wisconsin Museum of Fiber Arts

Nashville in 1961

Chains & Paths

I saw this quilt in an online auction a few months ago.

It's a great effect from some simple patchwork.

About 1900

Just a lot of simple patchwork.

The basic unit is the quarter circle in a square

that we would call a Drunkard's Path block.

That yellow embroidery is a nice touch.

The repeat is a block like this

set on point

This arrangement and shading set all over has a BlockBase number

#1455, published by the Kansas City Star in 1942 as Chain Quilt.

I've got some other examples. This one from the Tennessee Project

and the Quilt Index is by Frankie Tatum Williams, made in Mississippi, about 1900.

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4C-83-D7

Hard to date from the photo

Both of these are set on the square

A detail of Frankie's shows you the shading, all the half

circles are one shade, all the backgrounds another---look like Turkey reds.

The units are rotated --- two corners go up and down, the other two corners go down and up.

Elvispeth blog shows a contemporary version.

http://qnovice.blogspot.com/2014/07/pretty-quiet-on-quilting-front.html

Here's a related block.

#1458 Only one rotation with two different shadings.

Three of the units go one way, the tail section is rotated.

Switch out the shading and make half the backgrounds dark and half light.

Quilters Newsletter attributed it to the Kansas City Star, but I've never found the original clipping. They called it Dove and it does look like a bird in flight, particularly if you isolate the four patch with alternate plain block or sashing.

In a house quilt I found floating around online.

Set all over it has a different number #1459.

But the differences are so subtle that I overgeneralized.

We're going to have to ignore

 #1459

Here's Aunt Martha's Vine of Friendship

first published in 1932. 

Needs a new BlockBase # 1459.5

Things are getting tricky.

Aunt Martha published Diagonal Stripes in 1958. It's not quite the same.

Needs a new BlockBase number 1459.7

No rotation, all the curves go the same way

but half are dark quarter circles and half light.

And one last chain.

A different rotation of the four units with 2 dark quarter circles and 2 light.

A vintage example. How old?

My mind is boggled.

Here's Aunt Martha's pattern for related blocks. If you print it out 7" wide you'd have a pattern for a unit about 3-1/2".