Country Tulips Quilt

This applique quilt was made from one of the last kits sold by the Leeward Company. It’s a more elaborate quilt than most of the other kit-quilts. 

The quilt is edge bound with beige fabric; the border of the quilt is a deep red-orange with four triangular insets at the midpoints of each side.  The insets and the inner border are created from a small print calico sporting red-orange dianthus flowers, plants and buds on a white quilt top.  Inside this border is another yellow border and a smaller blue frame forms the innermost border.   The same yellow fabric as the border forms the color of the center of the quilt.  Twelve diamond shaped panels are the central motif of the quilt. Within those panels are tulip plants with a full red tulip in the center, flanked by two smaller yellow tulips. The ground on which the tulips is planted is a clever stacking of the red, blue and calico border materials. Cream colored cotton forms the sky in these diamond shaped panels.

The tulip is a common quilt theme, probably descended from the Pennsylvania Dutch/German origins of early American needlework. Red tulips are often said to symbolize love, yellow tulips-sunshine and happiness. This beautiful piece certainly evokes a cheerful spirit in the viewer.

Dorothy Rankin completed this quilt in 1990. It is signed DJ Rankin, 1990.