Northern Lily Southern Rose Block 2

Tennessee Rose Wreath by Susan Stiff

Block 2

Here's the second block in the nine-month block-of-the-month pattern I'm doing this year with Moda called Northern Lily, Southern Rose.

Susan Stiff and I designed the BOM quilt. Susan's model is done in prints from my Civil War Reunion reproduction collection with green solids from the Moda Bella Solid collection.

Each of the nine applique blocks is drawn from 19th-century regional patterns---North and South. The block I'm calling Tennesee Rose Wreath is based on a Southern design. When Bets Ramsey and Merikay Waldvogel were doing the Quilts of Tennessee search they noticed this unusual pattern, which isn't seen elsewhere, although the Texas quilt searches found similar quilts---with pattern or quilts possibly brought from Tennessee. The pattern hasn't been published until recently and Coxcombs and Currants is a name they are using in Tennessee.

It's an unusual pattern, full of berries or currants in a wreath of fern-like foliage around a plant which is sometimes in a pot. We simplified the design, pulling out the coxcomb leaves, the dots and the central rose.

When I made my model I used traditional red and greens and used a four-way symmetry.

Susan's version in the pattern is a three way symmetry.

Tennessee Rose Wreath by Ilyse Moore

Ilyse Moore's version uses soft pinks and greens on a dotted background.

Notice the basting lines she uses for centering the pattern pieces.

You can easily change the symmetry by moving 4 foliage pieces to the compass points in your block rather than the three-way arrangement shown in the pattern. The pattern pieces are the same size; there's just less space between the pieces.

See 3 antique versions of the Coxcombs & Currants at the Quilt Index, two from Tennessee, one from Texas.

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4C-83-E2  
http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4C-83-169
http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4F-88-EA

And ask your quilt shop if they are carrying Northern Lily/Southern Rose this year.