One of my favorite patterns, this one offered a few years ago by
Molly at Fourth Corner Quilts.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
They call it "Full Blown Tulip.
Red and green calico blocks alternate with a chintz
pillar print in a blending of two styles---two ways of looking at fabric.
Same pillar print from Winterthur Museum's collection
About 1840 the fashion for large-scale furnishing prints in a busy composition was
replaced by a trend to use smaller scale calico prints. The Full Blown Tulip blocks are
the new idea; the chintz becoming old fashioned.
Ruth Finley in the 1929 book Old Patchwork Quilts called the design
"Full Blown Tulip" with a photo of a Turkey red, green and chrome orange & yellow quilt:
The height of quilt fashion about 1850.
So how old is this rather complex design?
The earliest examples are variations in a quilt dated 1842 & 1843.
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Other date-inscribed examples:
1842-1844 Henry Ford Museum
Philadelphia, Bucks County & Chester County names
They call it a Reel Variation.
American Museum of Folk Art
1842-1843, Sarah Morrell
Lisa Erlandson Collection
1844 Sarah A White
Annapolis, Maryland
Michigan State University Collection
1845 Abraham Messler, Somerville, New Jersey
Messler was a minister in the Reformed Dutch Church.
1845 Album Sampler with Donoho & Young family
names, Maryland Historical Society
BlockBase+ patterns numbered 36xx
Probably some skillful piecers in the 1840s did not fit it into a square block but pieced it into another odd shape. As my computer program is BLOCKBase we fit it into a block---in a circle, but pieced edges might be better.
About 1950 from my collection
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I redrew the BlockBase pattern for a 15-inch block.
Print on an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet.
In 1929 Ruby Short McKim published a pattern
in the Kansas City Star called Strawberry. She added an extra
seam in the petals.
BlockBase #3640
McKim's name from a mid-20th-c sampler.
A few years later an Oklahoma reader sent another version to the Star.
A real challenge. BlockBase #3637.
1938 Chicago Tribune version
Variations have many names. I'm not going to count them all. I've always liked Victoria's Crown, another Finley name, although I have no idea how old that name actually is.
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