Hexagon Flower Garden Quilt Pattern
When I share a quilt pattern I always seem to find something to do with Nancy Page’s Quilt Club. I’ve discussed who she was in another blog post I shared, Tulip Quilt Pattern from her Garden Bouquet quilt.
A lot of her patterns are from the 1930’s, and so is the one I’m sharing today. However, instead of the more common name of Grandmother’s Flower Garden, she named this quilt pattern after a US First Lady, Martha Washington.
This quilt pattern is from The Akron Beacon Journal, 30 Apr 1932. The article goes on to talk about keeping a beautiful scrapbook of quilt patterns. As-well-as describing the best way to make this block.
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As I researched I found that many examples of the Martha Washington Flower Garden quilt were in a diamond shape rather than the familiar Grandmother’s Flower Garden hexagon. Still six sides but more elongated like the French Bouquet quilt pattern.
An example of one can be seen at The Quilt Index. It’s titled Martha Washington Garden. It was made in 2002 but takes it’s fabrics and style from a 1930’s quilt.
Hexagon Quilt Pattern
This honeycomb or hexagon was the first known quilt pattern published in an American periodical. The Godey’s Lady’s Book published it in 1835.
Many early periodicals like Godey’s had quilt patterns featured in them, but they seldom gave names to the quilt patterns. Usually only using descriptive names.
This article from the Antique Quilt History site Quilt Pattern Names goes into detail about the name history of this pattern and several others.
More History
More history of this quilt pattern can be found on Barbara Brackman’s site. Read the article Tessellations: Hexagons 2 Rings of Rosettes.
Ruby McKim even had her own version of the Grandmother’s Flower Garden.
The US National Park Service has a Quilt Discovery Experience page. It’s a great reference on the history of quilts and their patterns. Also you can download a PDF file (the link is right at the beginning) of their Quilt Discovery Booklet.
The Patterns From History website has a free Flower Garden Hexagon Pattern Template you can print plus more history on this hexagon pattern.
Nancy Zieman has a New Slant on the Grandmother’s Flower Garden Quilt. This is a PDF file. I found this new way of sewing it very interesting.
I could go on and on, but I’ll stop here. If you Google this pattern you’ll find more than enough help in putting one together.
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Enjoy!
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