Job's Tears quilt block

Job's Tears

April 22, 1933-The Job's Tears quilt originated in New England before the revolution "as early as 1760" according to Nancy Cabot.  In 1819, it became known as "Slave Chain" due to "the great political disturbance" of admitting "Missouri to the Union and the subsequent problem of slavery" she wrote.  In 1840, it was called Texas Tears and by 1880, it was called Endless Chain.

This is another pattern that I can not find any examples of by any of the names it has been given.  However, it can be found in Electric Quilt's BlockBase program as #3079.

Nancy states,"The pieced blocks are always sewed together without intervening strips, and thus form an endless chain over the entire quilt."





I don't quite understand what she means by pieced blocks because here is a copy of her actual pattern and it looks like an applique pattern to me.  Their is no background pattern piece to sew in between the curves.

Her patterns that I have seen so far don't tell you how to make the blocks. But, back then they didn't have all the resources that we do today so I guess a quilter just knew to trace templates, cut the fabric and sew the pieces together, by hand quite often.

Here's an example of what I think a quilt made with this pattern might look like-

Tomorrow-Stonewall Jackson