Quilting Stories: An Epilogue

With our newest exhibition, Common Threads: Stories from our Quilt Collection, opening soon, we thought it would be timely to follow up with one last quilting blog post.  One challenge with digitizing and cataloging the quilts was identifying the patterns.  The repeating patterns on our quilts are beautiful, and every square is unique; however, each one has an underlying pattern, some common with quilts, while some were more unique.

While digitizing the quilt collection, we kept our own reference to the different patterns which appeared in our quilts, and we thought we would share them here.

To see more quilts, and to learn the stories behind them, be sure to visit the Oshawa Museum and take in our newest exhibit, Common Threads: Stories from our Quilt Collection, opening in June.

Blazing Star Pattern

‘Broken Dish’ (Variation) / ‘Hourglass’

Carolina Lily Pattern

Churn & Dash Pattern

Crazy quilt – this quilting ‘pattern’ was popular in the Victorian Era. There is no structured pattern to it, but, in keeping with the Victorian ‘Waste not, want not’ philosophy, it was an ideal quilting method to use up scrap fabrics.

Crosses & Losses Pattern

Friendship block – this example in particular features a signature in the centre

Irish Chain Pattern

Lemoyne Star Pattern

Log Cabin Pattern – easily recognizable – we have several in this pattern in our collection

Maple Leaf Traditional Quilt (a very popular pattern in the 1920s. It resembles star patterns)

Orange Peel Pattern

Pinwheel Pattern

Baby Block Pattern