State Flowers (Ruby McKim pattern)

This kit contains 50 - 100% cotton blocks -

finished size 9 x 7" (printed on 11 x 8 1/2 piece of fabric)

In the Sunday paper on May 15, 1932, the Kansas City Star printed a drawing of a completed quilt top. The quilt was the culmination of a series of patterns of state flowers for the 48 states that made up the USA in 1932. The drawings of the state flowers were drawn by Ruby Short McKim.

For weeks the paper had been printing line drawings of each state's flowers, one pattern on Sunday and another one during the week. Quilters collected the pattern and were encouraged to embroidery them onto 7" x 9" pieces of muslin. Mrs. Walter Sharpe of Indiana made a quilt from the designs and it is now part of the International Quilt Study Collection at the University Nebraska.

You can read about this quilt here .

We've taken the original line drawings and printed them in black permanent ink on muslin. They are ready to be colored or fabric painted, making a colorful, modern version of this famous pattern. Two additional states (Alaska and Hawaii) have been created in the style of Ruby McKim, so you'll have all 50 states for your quilt.

This is what the Alabama Block looks like.

In this kit you'll get 50 muslin blocks, instructions on the proper colors of each flower and instructions for putting a finished quilt together. If you'd like to purchase additional fabric for the sashing or the wide border & binding, you can order them as well.