Phoebe's Favorite Dogtooth #8: Eagle

 

Phoebe's Favorite Dogtooth #8: Eagle by Becky Brown

A Garth Auction offering a classic four-block eagle done

in Dogtooth technique and showing how blues could fade

about 1900.

A couple of the patterns in our Dogtooth series seem to have been favorites with Southern quilters, like the Tobacco Leaf or the Princess Feather but this eagle, usually a four-block set, has definite origins in Pennsylvania.

Ruth Finley called it a “Union Quilt” in her 1929 book Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women Who Made Them and thought they might be Civil War souvenirs.

"Of all patriotic quilts none is more characteristic than the Union Quilt with four great American eagles spreading their wings across each corner. Red, white and blue are, of course, the colors of the quilt....This specimen was made during the Civil War when the earlier wide-spread use of the eagle design was revived by the North."

But examples like the four-block above are easy to date by the fabrics as end-of-the-19th century or later .

A few are actually date-inscribed.

May, 1867

Debby Cooney's collection

Four-block eagles were made well into the 20th century as in this example of tangerine

and aqua pastels. Do note that this eagle is an exercise in Dogtooth applique---

not particularly well-done---even the moon seems to have been slashed and turned.

 Eagle by Elsie Ridgley in William Morris repros.

Patterns. Two for the Dogtooth methods; two for the Template.

 Eagle by Denniele Bohannon. She's using template patterns---easier on

the machine.

(Forgot to post this one)

 Eagle by Jeanne Arnieri

More peacock than eagle.

Sketch by Becky Brown

One more pattern to go in the nine-block series.

Becky's fussycut star

See our Facebook Group

PhoebesFavoriteDogtoothQuilt

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1007843703959466