Mystery Pattern: Swirl

For years the owner of this quilt and I have puzzled over the pattern.

She's drawn it up. She is going to make it, she says.

I am not.

But it does stick in my memory because it is so odd (and so difficult to draft---much less sew.)

I was looking at the pictures of cheddar quilts that Kathy Sullivan has collected and came across a cousin.

It's similar in its kind of yin-yang design but this doesn't repeat in the same complex way. (See below for the true Yin-Yang symbol.)

Neither are in my BlockBase computer program or Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.

This is the closest I can find---but it's a distant cousin. Carrie Hall called it Spinning Ball.

The date on the red and white quilt is probably 1930-1950. That curvy ice-cream cone border makes me think it's after 1930 and so much Turkey red would not be likely after 1950.
The chrome orange block quilt is probably early 20th century, or possibly late 19th when so many Southerners made graphic designs with solid-colored cottons.

Thanks to Barbara and Kathy for the pictures.

Chrome Orange

This week the topic of my subscription email newsletter The Quilt Detective is chrome orange and chrome yellow. I have a disk, courtesy of Kathy Sullivan, that features quilts with chrome orange, what we today call cheddar. Kathy gave a Roundtable Session at the American Quilt Study Group meeting in October about the topic and she generously gave each participant a disk with the quilts in question. She gave me permission to use them.

Kathy collects cheddar quilts and quilts made in North Carolina, and many of these quilts fit into both categories.

This one is calling her name.

Another thing she collects is quilts and information about quilts made in this unusual pattern found in North Carolina. This one's appliqued to chrome yellow.

Thanks to Kathy for the entertainment.