Flowers don't often sprout from shoes,
but here is a distinctive applique design
seen in the Miami County sampler quilts
The February block for the 2014 Block of the Month is
drawn from one of the many turn-of-the-last century samplers.
Notice the red shoe near the center of this
album top dated 1906 from the Quilt Complex
A detail
Detail from the Helman quilt
I've been collecting pictures of these samplers
for quite a while.
Above is a photocopy of an ad for a quilt lost nearly 30 years ago. It has the usual eagle plus a workbench full of tools, which you also see once in a while. Sue Cummings writes that these samplers were often gifts or presentation quilts for children coming of age. The tools might indicate a boy going into the carpentry trade. This missing quilt also features the typical pattern of blocks of different sizes with dark filler strips to fill out the rectangle.
Another photocopy from the files, this sampler dated 1908.
Notice the ax and saw on the left side here.
With only six patterns we don't have room for any tools.
The Helman Quilt from Sue Cummings's book
But we had to have the Flowering Shoe.
Your February guild newsletter has the pattern for rectangular block.
