Pumpkin Patch

Someone asked me about this pattern last year

and I couldn't find it in my Encyclopedia of Applique.

The patterns are categorized by construction

and this is one of the rather unusual designs that

has a large central image with four arms extending out to the corners.

Most applique designs have four elements growing out of the center north, east, south and west

plus four arms extending out to the corners, something I categorized as Four Plus Four...

As in this design numbered 22.41 in the Encyclopedia of Applique called Mexican Rose in the early 20th century pattern catalog from the Ladies' Art Company.

Where they sold it as an applique and a quilting pattern.

The closest thing I can find to the pattern of the day today

is their

Pumpkin

Ladies Art Company #508

My #12.68

It has the same concentric rings in the center with

four arms but little of the grace of the quilts

actually made in that pattern.

Of which I have found many.

Quilt by the exhibitor's great-great-grandmother,
Laura Ellen Davis Coffman, who lived in Salem, Indiana

 See Lisa's blog here:
http://inspiredquilter.blogspot.com/2010/11/quilting-through-ages-antique-quilt.html

There is variety in the centers, flowers, circles and pie crust like shapes

Online auction, possibly last quarter of the 19th century.

Found in the Ohio Quilt Project

The mid-19th century versions

tend to have fancier borders.

The pattern was one of those popular 19th-century designs

that seems never to have been published in the

20th century so it fell out of use.

This one's unusual in the colors reflecting the early 20th century

claret reds and indigo blues

rather than the mid-19th century Turkey red and green.

  You see it as a Four-Block set and as smaller blocks set all over.

The tan was probably once green.

As in this one from the end of the 19th century.

Here's a fabulous mid-century example found in the New York State

Quilt Project. Note the heart shape in the

corner florals.

Similar heart shape in a quilt shown

at the Wisconsin Quilt Museum

And another from an online auction

Here's a 36" block with a fancy shape in the corners.

I guess that many of these floral centers were cut

like a snowflake. Fold a circle of fabric into twelve pie shape pieces.

Then scallop the edge with your scissors

And applique them down.

You do see that pie crust shape too without the corners

Particularly in mid-19th-century album samplers.

I think we should call it Pumpkin.

Read more about the Ladies Art Company at Connie Chung's webpage

http://www.ladiesartcompany.com/history.htm