Setting an Applique Sampler

I've been putting off setting my applique blocks for last year's Northern Lily/Southern Rose quilt.

At Moda we originally did the pattern for a block of the month in an unpdated color scheme and contemporary set for the Civil War Reunion fabric collection but I did a group of blocks on ivory prints for an old-fashioned look.

Ilyse Moore

Northern Lily/Southern Rose

I was inspired to get the blocks out by Ilyse's quilt, which is now not only sashed but bordered and awaiting closer quilting. The pattern called for 12" blocks. Ilyse made her blocks smaller.

I wanted to use a set that looked authentic to the 19th century so I checked my file of samplers from online auctions. On point---red sashing. I liked it. But it's too late for that. The blocks are designed to go on the square. (Note to self----next sampler think diagonal set!)

I thought about just putting them side by side which can look too chaotic.

Alternating with plain blocks might be too dull.

There's a strong tradition of using red strips as sashing...

...from Baltimore about 1850 till the end of the century.

And then there are green strips.

Jerri McReynolds used green strips on her Northern Lily and it looked great.

I decided on a red stripe, sort of wide. I noticed that mid-century quilters often just ran the stripe like that with no cornerstones to break up the sashing.

I am awaiting not only inspiration but the yardage for my next Civil War reproduction line for a final border.

The pattern is out-of-print and the Civil War Reunion fabric is long gone, but I did find two online sources that still have patterns and kits. You can ask your local shop if they have any of the patterns left.

http://www.somethingtocrowabout.com/catalog.php?category=1&page=3

http://www.farmerscountrystore.com/store/catalog.php?item=1333

The next Civil War collection will be called Metropolitan Fair and I expect to get some yardage right before the May Quilt Market.

Northern Lily Southern Rose Quilting Pattern

The quilting design for the Northern Lily/Southern Rose applique sampler is drawn from the symbol of the Grand Army of the Republic.

It's a five-pointed star with trefoils on the tips. Click on this picture and it should be large enough to print and use for a quilting design. (You have to stick that extra point on as I couldn't fit it on a sheet of rectangular paper.)

This GAR star was proudly worn by members of the Union veterans' organization known as the Grand Army of the Republic.

It's often found in Civil War Reunion and Veterans' imagery.

The GAR star fits in the alternate plain blocks in the sampler quilt and would make a good quilting design for any Civil War memorial quilt.

Northern Lily/Southern Rose Block 8

Seth Thomas Rose from the kit illustration.

Block number 8 in this sampler of regional applique is a Southern rose.

Seth Thomas Rose by

Barbara Brackman

 Seth Thomas clock

In 1929 Ruby McKim featured the Seth Thomas Rose design in the Kansas City Star saying that Araminta Daniel Kreeger drew the pattern for the original quilt in 1862. Daughter Fannie told McKim that Araminta copied the design from the face of a Seth Thomas clock brought to Missouri from North Carolina. Shelf clocks often were decorated with hand-painted scenes and florals.

Seth Thomas Rose by Ilyse Moore

The clocks were made in New England but Araminta and Fannie Kreeger were Southerners---Missouri Confederates. Another of Araminta's quilts was stolen from the bed by Jayhawking Yankees during the Civil War. (See a post about that quilt here: http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2011/10/40-order-number-eleven.html

Seth Thomas Rose by

debi schrader

It's an unusual pattern with the circles dotting the central flower.

 For my book

 Borderland in Butternut and Blue.

I made one like McKim's pattern, which had a vase.

Araminta's quilt has disappeared. Any quilts in the design seem to have been made in the 1930s after the pattern appeared in the newspaper. The one above is much like the newspaper pattern.

Here's one among a set of blocks for sale.

But I am always hoping to find Araminta's original.

Maybe this is it.

A big central rose, a footed urn, mid-19th-century---

recorded in the Iowa Quilt Project, purchased by a collector,

so no information about the maker.

See the whole quilt here at the Quilt Index

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=18-36-167

debi's

Back to the Northern Lily/Southern Rose Sampler.

Everyone is getting their blocks together. Ilyse used a triple strip border.

Jerri McReynolds used a green calico, a single strip.

debi set hers with alternating log cabin blocks. She started with a package of Layer Cakes from Civil War Reunion and added a few yards of a tan solid. She kept pulling leftovers out of her scrapbag, enough for a pieced striped border.

Susan Stiff used a print stripe for her inner border.

Next month the last applique block.

Northern Lily/Southern Rose Block 7

#7 Carolina Rose

By Ilyse Moore

The seventh block of the Northern Lily/Southern Rose applique block is based on a pattern seen in North Carolina. Ilyse used reverse applique for the center line on the leaves in her version.

Characteristics of this rare regional design include an unusual symmetry based on a single central flower topped by a triple floral. The leaves framing the floral are large and often serrated.  I gave it a  number--- 31.99 in my Encyclopedia of Applique. No one has had a family name for it.

Detail of one made in Alamance County,

North Carolina by Nancy Spoon Schoffner,

mid to late 19th century.

When the North Carolina Quilt Project published their book North Carolina Quilts in 1988 they had documented only four quilts in the design, all from adjacent Alamance and Guilford Counties. Since then more variations have been found.

By Susan Stiff

These are the kit prints from Civil War Reunion and the Bella Solids from Moda.

See Nancy Spoon Schoffner's version at the Quilt Index by clicking here:

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4B-82-389

And another version (courtesy of Kathy Sullivan) on a post last year by clicking here:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2009/12/chrome-orange.html

By Barbara Brackman

I used a Bella Solid yellow for the center line and did regular old applique.

I placed the block on the square to go with the other blocks in the quilt. If you wanted it to look more like the North Carolina originals you could line the stem and pot along the diagonal. You'd need to make the block larger too---Maybe 16" or 17"

By debi schrader

debi focus-cut the Union print from Civil War Reunion for her pot and did reverse applique on the leaves to let the crinkly linen-like background through. I had seen an antique quilt with the tiny pot so added that and simplified the original for the pattern.

A strange composition from the end of the 19th century.

The serrated leaves and triple floral have something in common with that Carolina pattern.

You can find the pattern and the kit for my applique sampler by doing a websearch for Northern Lily Southern Rose Moda.

Northern Lily/Southern Rose Block 6

Dixie Rose by Ilyse Moore

The sixth pattern in the Northern Lily/Southern Rose pattern is a Southern rose.

Dixie Rose by Susan Stiff

Detail of Dixie Rose quilt

 made by Sarah Williams,

Anson County, North Carolina, before 1860

The North Carolina quilt project found two examples of this pattern in their search for regional quilts, both made prior to the Civil War. The name Dixie Rose had not been published until their 1988 book, but that was the name that apparently had been handed down in one of the families. Note the use of paisley shapes for the leaves in this one.

See pages 82 and 140 of the North Carolina Quilts book by Ellen Fickling Eanes, et al.

And see the full quilt at the Quilt Index here:

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4B-82-E59 

This block was in a North Carolina sampler dated 1855, made for Laura Brown McCallum.

See the full quilt at the Quilt Index by clicking here:

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4B-82-D02

Judy Davis did a Dixie Rose for my Civil War Women book using paisleys.

The name Dixie Rose has been a part of Southern imagery since the War. Augusta Kortrecht wrote two popular girls' books Dixie Rose and A Dixie Rose in Bloom in the early 20th century, and O. Henry wrote a story called the Rose of Dixie. A websearch for the words reveals information such as one Dixie Rose Lester (born 1913) is buried in Paulding County, Georgia. You'll see a few recent birth announcements of 21st-century girls named Dixie Rose.

Dixie Rose by Barbara Brackman

I have all my applique blocks done now and I am thinking of a set.

Possibly side-by-side to make a wall hanging.

Brenda Papadakis included the Dixie Rose (at a tiny scale) in her Dear Hannah pattern several years ago.

Here's Susan's version of the finished Northern Lily/Southern Rose sampler,

 done in Civil War Reunion fabrics and Moda Bella Solids.

Northern Lily/Southern Rose Block 5

New York Lily

By Ilyse Moore

Here's the fifth block in the applique Block of the Month that Susan Stiff and I designed for Moda to show off my Civil War Reunion fabrics in 2011, the 150th anniversary year of the beginning of the Civil War.

Susan Stiff's mockup from the pattern

using prints from my Civil War Reunion

 and greens from the Moda Bella Solids.

Each of the nine applique blocks is a regional pattern from North or South. I called the fifth block New York Lily as I had seen several New York sampler quilts that included this triple flower with a leaf-like oval in the center.

The pattern is a classic applique design seen from about 1840-1890 in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, an image easily traced to earlier Germanic folkarts in the U.S. and Europe.

Pennsylvania plates dated 1782 and 1816

From the Index of American design

The design is a triple flat floral with an oval center, somewhat like a pomegranate, somewhat like a lily.

I used Moda Bella Solids for the pink, red and yellow. To capture the depth of the old over-dyed greens I used a woven with blue-green yarns going one way and yellow-green another---what used to be called a changeable weave.

New York Lily

By debi schrader

using prints from Civil War Homefront

Northern Lily/Southern Rose

by Ilyse Moore

Ilyse is way ahead of debi and me. She's set her blocks with a strip sashing and is shopping for a border. Her blocks are 8" instead of the 12" blocks in the pattern.

Susan set hers together with alternating square-in-a-square blocks that form stars. The instructions for this set are in the pattern. Several shops are selling patterns and kits for this year's Northern Lily/Southern Rose. Ask your local shop to order it from Moda/United Notions.