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FieldGuidetoQuilts.com

Full-circle blocks

These blocks are full circles (or the equivalent) set within square blocks.

Dusty Miller Friendship Garden Cottage Tulips True Lovers Buggy Wheel Dogwood Bloom Double Wedding Ring Dresden Plate Dresden Plate My Little Girl's Skirt Square & Circle Wheel of Fate Wheel of Fortune Circle Within Circle

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Dusty Miller

Dusty Miller

Dusty Miller
Finley, 1929

The Dusty Miller Quilt

This marriage of a Maltese Cross and a Pineapple block is named, according to Ruth Finley (1929), for the guy who ran the grain mill. She described him thus:

...the miller himself was jolly and fat with a white butcher's apron tied about his middle, a white skull cap caked with flour dust on his head, and flour dust clinging to his squinting brows and eyelashes.

Or it could have been named for the Dusty Miller plant (right).

There are two ways to draw up Dusty Miller, Finley's (on an 80-square x 80-square grid) and Hall's (on a star grid). We learned that from Beyer.

We've drawn and posted a diagram. Just click on the "Make it!" icon.




*"Centaurea cineraria (dusty miller) (south of Sioux City, Iowa, USA) 2" by James St. John is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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Friendship Garden

Friendship Garden
Wheeler, 1940

Friendship Garden

The Old Chelsea Station Needlecraft Services published many innovative patterns by the fictional "Laura Wheeler," and this is one of them. The ring around the dark center octagon was made of dark and light scraps; the rest were consistent across the quilt top. Click on the "Make It!" icon for a pattern.

Jinny Beyer, in Quilter's Album, tells us that the block was published in the Sioux City Journal in 1940. The block is #3597 in Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.

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Cottage Tulips Cottage Tulips Cottage Tulips Kansas City Star 1931 This appealing pieced block was published in the Kansas City Star in 1931, credited to Eveline Foland, and again in 1947. It's a pieced block, but the Star helpfully suggested that it can be appliquéd on another piece of fabric "if a square block is desired."

True Lovers' Buggy Wheel

True Lovers Buggy WheelTrue Lovers' Buggy Wheel Foland, KCS, 1930Wheel of Chance Eveline Foland, who came up with quilt blocks almost every day, produced this 12" block to the Star's readers in 1930, with the alternative name of Wheel of Chance. The wheel is made of twelve rays of "plain" and twelve rays of "flowered" fabric that "may or may not be joined with a 3" strip of plain material," Foland wrote. That would, of course, make a windowpane quilt. "It is lovely when made in three colors, with pink floral print and light blue for the wheel with the center and the edge lavender," Foland wrote. Either that, or green and lavender for the wheel on a white background. There were no apostrophes in or around "Lovers," so we can't tell you how many lovers there were, or whether the love was requited. But it's not an "infatuation" wheel, so we're optimistic.

Dogwood Bloom Dogwood Bloom Dogwood Bloom Stone, #37 1906 Clara Stone's 1906 cross-on-a-wheel block was the first of a spate of similar blocks that cropped up in the first half of the 20th century. (It was #37 in her Practical Needlework.) We've based the drawing on a 15x15 grid, just as Jinny Beyer did in A Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns.

Double Wedding Ring Double Wedding Ring Double Wedding Ring Kansas City Star 1928 Wedding Ring/The Little Wedding Ring/Small Double Wedding Ring/Double Wedding Ring/The Wedding Ring/Small Wedding Ring Quilt The block at left was called Wedding Ring when it appeared in the Kansas City Star in 1928. You can call it Double Wedding Ring. We do. That's because nobody will know what you're talking about if you call them anything else. The pattern was exceptionally popular during the first half of the 20th century. "The painstaking care [that] this attractive quilt requires seems to be no intimidation," wrote Ruby McKim. We've always assumed that Double Wedding Ring quilts were made as wedding gifts, meaning that the difficulty was part of the pattern's charm. Many were better taken care of than the typical homemade quilts. Our own stitchin' forebears managed to pass down two of these showstoppers on one side of the family and one on the other side, and all those quilts had spent their entire existence in dry, dark linen cabinets, unused. The design works well with scraps along the edge of the petal-shaped blocks, so older quilts being sold today may be loaded with vintage fabrics.

Dresden Plate Dresden Plate Dresden Plate Dresden Plate Dresden Plate If your block looks like either of the designs at left, you can call it a Dresden Plate and you'll be right. The size of the center can vary. The shape and number of rays, the number of colors, the design of the circle within the block, and so forth—they can vary too. As long as all the rays are identical in length and width, it's still called a Dresden Plate. Specific configurations do have different names. Sunflower, Aster, Daisy, Friendship Ring, and Friendship Daisy are among them. In practice, though, not even many quilters keep track of which is which. A blog post on quiltinspiration.blogspot.com offers a wonderful show of different Dresden Plate quilts: There are plenty of tutorials and templates out there, but we've posted our own diagrams so that you can make your Dresden Plate with 16, 20, 24, or 28 rays each. Click on the violet "Make It!" icon above to go there.

My Little Girl's Skirt My Little Girl's Skirt My Little Girl's Skirt Kansas City Star 1952 This was a scrap block when the Kansas City Star published it in 1952, designed by a reader to use the scraps from (you guessed it) the skirts she had made for her daughter. The inner circle and outside edges are meant to be solid colors and the curved pieces prints. It's based on a 10x10 grid.

Square & Circle Square & Circle Square & Circle Stone 1906 Square & Circle would fit nicely on an 8x8 grid, but that's not how it's drawn. Its proportions are almost as if someone had traced around an upside-down dessert plate and an upside-down teacup to make the design. That person would be Clara Stone, who included it in her 1906 Practical Needlework. We believe that Square & Circle was almost certainly designed as a scrap block. Few quilters would have trouble reproducing this block in an 8x8 pattern. The diagram we've included is traced from the block; click on the "Make it!" icon to see it.

Wheel of Fate Wheel of Fate (three colors) Wheel of Fate Stone 1906 Wheel of Fate (two-color original) The ominous-sounding Wheel of Fate is the name of Block #185 in Clara Stone's 1906 Practical Needlework. Stone's drawing showed a two-color block with all light fabrics on a darker background, like our first mockup at right. To our eye, the block's pieces all but disappear. Click on the violet icon for a diagram.

Wheel of Fortune Wheel of Fortune Wheel of Fortune Finley 1929 Finley's Wheel of Fortune was published in her 1929 book Old Patchwork Quilts. Although she diagrammed it in two colors, it is perfectly suited to be a scrap quilt as long as the colors are divided into distinctly light and dark fabrics for the center spokes. The block is drawn up a grid of 12 squares by 12. Click on the violet "Make It!" icon to see.

Circle Within Circle Circle Within Circle Circle Within Circle Ladies Art Co., #42 1897 This block is #42 in the Ladies Art Company catalog of 1897. It appeared in two colors, like virtually all the other blocks in the catalog, but it's awfully pretty in three (right). While Jinny Beyer's Quilter's Album says that the block is drawn up on a 12 x 12 grid, the result from our tracing gives us a 16 x 16. Whatever. If you click on the blue "Make It!" icon, you'll find a pattern and instructions that'll spare you from thinking about grids at all.