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:

https://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2024/10/links-for-kentucky-classic.html

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.

https://encyclopediaquiltpatterns.blogspot.com/2019/04/hospital-sketches-block-3-love-apple.html