Despite the MEP’s claim that the patterns were based on physical quilts, each pattern was actually drawn from a black-and white plate or pattern diagram in Ruth Finley’s now classic book, Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women Who Made Them. For example, the Chimney Sweep features a muted aqua tone, a shade not produced in the nineteenth century. The screen-printed plate shows an appliquéd floral motif in the corner treatment, just as the black-and-white photo in Finley’s Plate 72, but rather than use the ubiquitous red and green fabrics common on appliqué quilts of the mid-nineteenth century—as noted in Finley’s caption—the MEP plate shows the appliqué in reverse, with the flowers silhouetted in Nile Green, referred to as “Apple Green” in the manual.