Not So Current Events

My friend Merikay sent a scrapbook page with a sketch of another Garfield's Monument pattern. See my post on this pattern on September 28th by clicking here: http://siputflash.blogspot.com/2010/09/intepreting-old-patterns.html

This may be the original publication of the monument style block. Wilene Smith thinks it might be from Farm and Home in the early 1880s right after Garfield's assassination.

Note there isn't much information on how to make it. You wouldn't want to applique all those right angles but there are no seam lines. This might be why there are so many variations. Everyone drew it differently so they could stitch it. No two quilts seem to be done in the same pattern.

Merikay has just been to visit Garfield's Monument and sent vintage postcards along with the scrapbook page.

Garfield's Monument, Cleveland

The glass mosaic in the ceiling is on the left.

See an EQ exercise using a Garfield's Monument block:

http://www.electricquilt.com/Users/FunStuff/MysteryQuilt/SkyLights/lesson09.asp

This is the kind of thing we can spend hours on---and do.

But the point I wanted to make here is....

I noticed on the same scrapbook page two designs named for Dewey.

The Dewey Dream Quilt and the Dewey Quilt, a reference lost to many of us today.

(The Dewey Dream is in lower left corner; Dewey Quilt in top right corner above)

Admiral George Dewey (1837-1917) was known for winning a battle in the Spanish-American War in 1898. He certainly was a victor in the propaganda battle as my Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns and the digital version BlockBase show 5 designs named for the Admiral or his wife.

Left to right:

Mrs. Dewey's Choice

The Dewey Block

The Dewey

Dewey's Victory

as well as my version of the Dewey Dream Quilt shown on the scrapbook page.

But on the scrapbook page I see there is another Dewey Quilt.

The Dewey Quilt

That is one wacky block.

It was easy to draw in EQ though. I realized it is based on the Maltese Cross construction.

With one line in every arm missing.

I just deleted those lines and recolored it.

And look how great it looks as an all-over pattern.

Pop test today:

Who was Admiral Dewey?

How fleeting is fame?