Unknown Pattern

Years ago a friend bought this quilt, a pattern I couldn't find published anywhere. It's related to a Pickle Dish with similar arcs pieced of triangles (or almost triangles). But it has a completely different geometric structure, like a clamshell or fan quilting design.

Pickle Dish

See more about Pickle Dish on my June 14th post.
http://siputflash.blogspot.com/2010/06/pickle-dish.html

And click here at the Quilt Index to see a great Pickle Dish in the collection of the North Carolina Museum of History.
http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4B-82-844

The quilt in the unknown pattern looks to be about 1880-1920 by the way the greens are fading from the light. Those fugitive green dyes tend to be after 1880. In the lower right hand corner some one has patched an area with a piece of 1930's Nile green. The chrome orange (what we call cheddar) is also fading and splotched, color loss often caused by washing.

The pattern doesn't appear in my Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. For years I figured the quilt was a one-of-a-kind design but recently I found two more in online auctions.

This one looks to have been chrome orange and fugitive green too, although arranged in the opposite fashion. The dyes are really faded here, probably a combination of hard washing and too much sunshine.

Again this one looks to be 1880-1920 by the dyes.

Here's a later version---by the mixture of bright colors with white I'd guess after 1930.

And I noticed one in the collection of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum. Click here to see it:

http://www.quiltstudy.org/includes/photos/quilt_database/large/1997_007_0399.jpg?PHPSESSID=bf577b00549c9bc75d5e8453048f8943

They call it Sunrise.

So what's the deal on this clamshell with triangles?

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  Is it a pattern published in a source obscure enough we pattern collectors haven't yet come across it?
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  Or is it a regional  pattern passed from hand to hand and never published?

I'd bet it's Southern. Quilt historians working with regional Southern patterns like Rocky Mountain, Whig's Defeat and Pine Burr have noted the prevalence of arcs and strips pieced of spiky triangles and diamonds in post-Civil-War Southern quilts.

Whig's Defeat, about 1880-1920.

There have to be more clamshell quilts out there.

Pickle Dish

Pickle Dish from Margaret Cavigga's collection, about 1860

The Pickle Dish pattern has been in the air around here lately.

It's a lot like a Double Wedding Ring, based on arcs and a squeezed square, but the arcs are full of points.

The name Pickle Dish seems to have first been published in the Kansas City Star in 1931

(Note: they liked the name so much their quilt web page is named http://www.pickledish.com/)

A wedding ring has four-sided patches in the arcs rather than triangular pieces.

Double Wedding Rings don't appear till about 1920.

The idea of an arc and an ogee (a squeezed square) is an old pattern structure based on overlapping circles.

The Rob Peter to Pay Paul or Compass top above is from Donna Stickovich's collection.

In 1932 the Grandmother Clark pattern company called the version with pointy shapes in the arcs Indian Wedding Ring, according to my Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.

The Pickle Dish pattern is older than the Double Wedding Ring, dating back to the last half of the 19th century. It was quite popular in the Southern U.S. about 1880-1910. I wonder what the Southern quilters called it before the name Pickle Dish was in print.

Karen Alexander found a print in an old quilt that looks just like a Pickle Dish. By the colors---Turkey red background with blue and brown figures---I'd guess the fabric could be pre-Civil War, as could the mossy stripe next to it.

See more about this quilt at Karen's blog by clicking here:
http://karenquilt.blogspot.com/2010/05/excitement-of-excavating-quilt.html

Here are some other Pickle Dish variations from online auctions:

This one has an X in the squeezed square.

The green is fading the way synthetic green dyes did after 1880 or so.

Here's a quirky version with two kinds of green dyes one fading, one fast, again probably 1880-1920.

Notice the arcs can have diamonds or triangles.

See some more examples by going to the Quilt Index. Click here:
http://www.quiltindex.org/
At the top left in the search box type the word pickle.
Several quilts will come up, mostly from the South.