Thursday, June 12, 2014

Indian Wedding Ring quilt block

Indian Wedding Ring
December 16, 1933-"Just a century and one year ago this interesting pattern was originated in Long Island, New York," wrote Nancy Cabot about today's quilt pattern entitled Indian Wedding Ring.

In 1832, the pattern was called simply "Burr." Nancy said that name was "probably out of admiration for the famous Aaron." I assume she is referring to Aaron Burr, our third vice president.

"As the popularity of the design spread westward this name was lost and through some obscure process of evolution it is now known as Indian Wedding Ring," she explained. Today we would more likely know  this pattern as Pickle Dish.

There are two copies of Indian Wedding Ring quilt patterns from the Progressive Farmer shown here. The first pattern is colored very differently than Nancy's pattern but the second one is similar to Nancy's.

There is an article on The Quilt Index website that talks about the history of the Wedding Ring quilt if you are interested in more history of this block. And here are several links to antique Indian Wedding Ring quilts-

Red and white from late 1800's

Red and white made by Confederate spy! from 1870

Blue and white with applique

Scrappy from 1915

Pink background from 1930

Modern looking from 1890

Brown, white and scrappy from 1930's

Yellow, white and scrappy from 1930's

I decided to make a 6" block to use up a bunch of tiny scraps. I knew it wouldn't be hard as long as I paper pieced the little sections. I'm glad I did. I love the look of this block! Since it is an overall interlocking design, it's not the best block to put in a sampler quilt. To make the block fit in a sampler quilt, I needed to inset the block in a background square of fabric that has a circle cut out of the center as you will see below. You can download my pattern here.

Here are the parts of each arc of the wedding ring. The shorter paper pieced section gets sewn on first as shown below.



The four arc sections are then sewn to the center piece-


The arcs are added to the center on opposite sides first as shown below. Once all four sides are sewn to the center, the center needs to be sewn into the square shown on the left. Match the centers of each side and it sews together easily.


Indian Wedding Ring can be found in Electric Quilt's Blockbase program as #305.

Tomorrow-Rose of Sharon

2 comments :

  1. Nancy Cabot's attribution of the name and origin of this pattern to Aaron Burr in 1832 sounds more like a fanciful myth created to sell newspapers and patterns than historical fact.

    Your example is gorgeous!

    The oval shape and triangular points suggest the prickly burrs that stick to clothes and pets. That burr seems a more likely origin for the burr name than Aaron Burr.

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  2. Congratulations, wonderful work, it's beautiful so much and good idea on site.

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