Friday, November 8, 2024

Pomegranate Applique

 

Kentucky Paw-Paw by Elsie Ridgley

Over at the CivilWarQuilts blog we are doing a Kentucky Classic applique sampler this year. The blocks for the BOM come from some mid-19th-century Kentucky quilts and those Kentuckians seem to have been fond of Pomegranate imagery---did they grow pomegranates in 19th-century Kentucky?

BillieJo Rondi Lesley's purple palette.
I'm calling them paw-paws in Kentucky.

A Rose tree

Elsie's William Morris prints

Becky Brown went off on her own tangent...

See posts with the free patterns for Kentucky Classic here:

I thought I'd look around for more Pomegranate designs. I found many ways to arrange and set the fruit blocks.

Kansas Museum of History
Top by Mary Jane Scruggs of Nicodemus, Kansas last quarter 19th c.



Tennessee project & the Quilt Index

Michigan State University/Cuesta Benberry Collection
For Hattie Dorsey Moore by her sister Mary Stanford, 1876


Denver Art Museum/probably Kentucky

Fons & Porter Collection, dated inscribed 1860


But surprisingly little variety in the fruit itself.

You can add a couple of flourishes 
but it's generally two layers or three.
Round or squat.

The major creativity is in the "top-knots."

A design transferred to quilts straight from German-American traditional arts.



1 comment:

  1. Mountain Mist created a pomagranate quilt sometime in the 1920s or 1930s. They were great at copying other people's patterns. So, I don't know where they got the idea from for their pattern. Maybe Kentucky?

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