This patchwork pattern is called Alabama. The block, made by Lena Wallace, is in the friendship quilt Malaga 1937 which I blogged about back in 2016. In fact, I wrote a whole ebook about this quilt - the link is just down the page on the right hand side.
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| Alabama patchwork block |
The Friendship Dahlia appears to be a most popular quilt block in the 1930s. It is an applique pattern with eight overlapping petals, a stem which was curved or straight, and a center circle to cover the petal points. It was a "friendship" block because to get the variety of prints desired the quiltmaker needed to swap materials with her friends. The block was also made without the variety as shown below (the overlapping petals were a bit challenging for Alma Hampton.)
The Friendship Dahlia design was an Aunt Martha favorite, pattern number C397.
The instructions state to "crease to ...
read more"Aunt Martha" quilt kits first appeared in 1930. The pre-cut kits did not stay in the market for long but Aunt Martha's pattern books and catalogues had a long print run from 1931 all the way to 1977. You can find out more about Aunt Martha from Wilene Smith's research.
I now have pdf copies of a few of the Aunt Martha books. The following one was one of the later books, printed in 1960.
Grayce Wilson was the maker of this fan block.
