QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Digital Encyclopedia of Applique: No More Orphaned Patterns

Unidentified applique patterns, going nameless, sourceless, orphaned.

You can help.
Buy this digital copy of my Encyclopedia of Applique

You'll never be at a loss for a pattern ID number again.

Click here:

It's $20.99
You can also buy a print edition on paper. Just check the other circle when you order.



The quilt in question is "Pieced Pineapple" Applique Encyclopedia #46.47, originally pictured in Ruth Finley's 1929 book in plate 80. Finley didn't know much about this old top, which she accurately dated to about 1840. She did write a bit about the pineapple in American design calling it
"one of the most favored of all post-Colonial designs....a symbol of domestic hospitality," description that has become the standard text about pineapple quilts.




A page of appliqued fruit
The Encyclopedia of Applique is available either in print or as a PDF from C&T Publishing.


The PDF is easy to use. I put a shortcut to the download on my desktop.
I can open it and scroll to the correct page. I can take a screen shot if I want to keep a copy of the information.


A Ladies's Art Company pattern 

Print this out for a pattern 8" square. It's the same mid-19th-century quilt
that's at the top of the page.

A few more variations of #46.47



From Marie Miller's shop

A vintage top quilted by Kathy Colvin


From the Grand Rapids Public Museum collection
and the Quilt Index

From an old Quilt Engagement Calendar

From the Massachusetts project and the Quilt Index,
one from the Borland family in the collection of the Concord Museum.

Attributed to New York in the Smithsonian's collection:

From a sampler made in New Jersey from Bonnie Hunter's blog


See some more appliqued pineapples here:

2 comments:

  1. This is such an intriguing pattern. I have to wonder though, how many quilters of that time period, actually got to see a real pineapple.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The pineapple is said to have been a symbol of hospitality in Colonial America. https://www.southernliving.com/culture/pineapple-hospitality

    ReplyDelete