Red, White and Orange

In our Nov, Dec ’11 issue of Quiltmaker (No. 142), we had the great honor of spotlighting the Infinite Variety Quilt Show, presented in March 2011 by the American Folk Art Museum in New York City. You probably heard all the buzz about the 650 red and white quilts collected by Joanna S. Rose, and like me, found yourself amazed at her collection!

We were also lucky enough to be given permission to pattern 3 of the red and white quilts from the quilt show–one of which is Dream Catcher.

Now, to be perfectly honest, we (I, but who’s checking!?) named this pattern Dream Catcher because, well, I liked the sound of it. I wish I could say it is the original name of this quilt, but I couldn’t, so Dream Catcher it is.

(Someday we’ll have to tell you about the very orderly, precise, scientific way we name our quilt patterns around here. (or not.) You would be pretty impressed, if not entertained. But, I digress.)

So, imagine our delight when we received an email from Laura Valdez in Illinois.

Laura’s quilt came from her mother, who traded her priscilla tie backs for this orange and white quilt that her grandma Gladys had made many years ago. As Laura became a quilter, she became curious about the name of this quilt and eventually discovered that the name of the block is Square and Compass, named for a life-saving crew’s captain.

You can see that the blocks are very similar, but because the patches in the corners of the blocks are different sizes the blocks end up looking just a little bit different.

Laura also shared that the traditional Square and Compass quilts were made in blue/blue-green and white, but her grandmother liked to work outside the box and made hers in orange and white! Wouldn’t her grandmother like to know how popular orange is today?!?

So thank you Laura for sharing your quilt and story with us! We loved the pictures and learning of this name for the quilt!