Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilts

By Jubilee P. Reid

Grandmother’s Flower Garden has remained a popular quilt pattern for centuries. These quilts reached their height of popularity in the 1920s, though variations of this pattern existed in England as early as 1770 and newly made Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilts can still be found in many quilt shows today.

This quilt pattern is made by basting (loosely stitching) fabric around a hexagon template made of paper or thin cardboard, usually between one and three inches in diameter. These hexagons are then sewn together by hand and the foundation template removed (although sometimes they are left inside the finished quilt). Six hexagons surround the center one, and then more rings can be added if the quilter chooses. The flower pattern is made by the arrangement of fabric colors. Other patterns, such as diamonds, can also be made simply by changing the color arrangements. Although, the hexagons along the edges can be cut to form a straight edge, often the edges on these quilts are left jagged around each flower.

A form of English paper piecing, this pattern had many names in its early days including “Honeycomb” and “Mosaic.” These hexagon quilts became popular in England in the late 1700s; the first American-made quilt of this type was sewn around the year 1800. Godey’s Lady’s Book published the first pattern in the United States in an 1835 issue.

Most of the Grandmother Flower Garden quilts made in the 1800s were sewn by upper class women as paper needed for the foundation was expensive and could not easily be obtained by the working class. Most templates for grandmother’s flower garden quilts were made of reused newspaper, catalogs, and sometimes even old letters. The templates could also be reused if removed carefully. An article published between 1903 and 1907 in the Transactions of the Huguenot Society of South Carolina, mentions a young girl accidentally using her grandfather’s deed to a French vineyard as templates for a hexagon quilt.

Hexagon quilts reached their height of popularity in the 1920s and 30s during which the name “Grandmother’s Flower Garden” came into use. The Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilts of this era were often made of pastel fabrics commonly having yellow centers of the flowers with pink petals surrounded by green hexagons.

Although many people attribute the “scrappy” look of these quilts to the poverty caused by the Great Depression, this style was also a trend among the upper class. The Colonial Revival brought renewed interest in old-fashioned American arts. Companies such as Sears, Roebuck, & Company sold kits containing precut fabrics for quilts including Grandmother’s Flower Garden. According to quilt historian Barbara Brackman, “many women who never made another quilt finished a Grandmother’s Flower Garden.”

Several Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilts, ranging in ages from 84 to 144 years old, are on display in Gallery One of the McMinn County Living Heritage Museum as part of a temporary exhibit. These quilts are made of pink, blue, green, purple, and yellow pastel shades.

The oldest among these quilts is a diamond pattern variation from c. 1880. It is comprised of red, green, and brown fabrics, darker colors than the other quilts on display.

One of these quilts, made by a group of women from the Coghill and Goodsprings Baptist Churches near Etowah, has names embroidered in the center of nearly every flower. It was sewn in 1935 for Shields Webb (1915 – 1972). The approximately fifty names on the quilt are those of the women who made it and include several members of the Webb family. According to Mrs. Webb who donated the quilt to the museum in 2012, it was a friendship gift of “…encouragement and appreciation for a struggling country boy during the Great Depression.”

Another of the Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilts was made in Chattanooga around 1940 by Elizabeth Key Cheney Cash (1869 – 1957). The museum also has textiles made by Elizabeth’s mother-in-law, Myra Ann Spence Cash DeVault (1849 – 1926) of Rhea County, TN. This quilt features 36 flowers made of double rings of hexagons on a white background.

Many people still enjoy making Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilts. It is an easy quilt pattern to travel with as it is often sewn by hand even today. The antique quilts at the museum represent hundreds of hours spent by many Tennessee women and the friendships between them.