Anne Orr Mosaic Rose Quilt Pattern

Last year I talked about an Anne Orr quilt top project from 1937 that I purchased on ebay.  The quilter had done so much work drafting the pattern, calculating how much fabric to purchase, and beginning construction, that it seemed really sad to me that the project was never finished.  She only had a tiny clipping to work from, and I wondered where she got it, because I’ve never seen a copy of this pattern.  It might have been from a leaflet, or maybe she cut it out of an old Good Housekeeping where Anne Orr was a contributing editor during the 30s.

There may be a way to strip piece this top, but since I never use this technique, I couldn’t figure out an efficient way to do it.  The original quilter of my kit hand pieced her blocks and made each rose an individual block.  Sewing the quilt together horizontally rather than diagonally is much easier, so my plan is to rotary cut zillions of little squares and chain piece my 20 blocks, as shown below (numbers denote different block patterns).  Finished squares of 1 1/2″ will result in a quilt about 73″ x 92″.

White I was messing around with this design, I decided to make a couple of doll quilt patterns.  I will probably make my finished squares 3/4″ on these small versions, so the quilt will be a 17″ square.  You can use any simple charted design for quilt making, and this type of quilt is perfect for a beginner. So grab a sheet of grid paper, and maybe your favorite cross stitch book for inspiration or some of Anne’s designs, and make yourself a little mosaic quilt