Southern Spin #2: Southern Star

 

Southern Spin #2: Southern Star by Becky Brown

Our second Southern favorite is a variation of a Mariner's Compass based on 6 spokes.

Southern Star by Denniele Bohannon

The pattern is a classic north and south, published about 1900

in Hearth & Home magazine as Southern Star.

BlockBase #3408

Different center, spikier points, about 1845-1865

Mariner's Compass variations were common all over the U.S. from

about 1830 to 1870. Four points or six....

 (I doubt a compass based on 6 points will help your navigation.)

Northerners tended to forget about the compass design

after the Civil War.

There are always exceptions.

1890-1920

You could go on adding layers of points.

Laura Fisher Quilts

Laura thought this one was Mennonite, end of the 19th century.

And people did.

Quilt attributed to Massachusetts, date-inscribed 1860.

Block #2 by Becky Collis

Print this out on an 8-1/2 " x 11" sheet for a 14" finished block. 

See the inch square for sizing.

Becky Brown

1&2

1 and 2 with sashing

Flying Geese-Wild Goose Chase

 

Mark French Antiques

Classic quilt in the Wild Goose Chase or Flying Geese design.

The earliest publication I've been able to find is the Ladies' Art Company,

which called the pattern Wild Goose Chase in their end-of-the-19th-century catalog.

They seem to have the proportions wrong.

Something I echoed in BlockBase & The Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.

The triangle should be a right angle HST.

Like this one attributed to Abba May Alcott in the collection of Orchard House in Massachusetts.

Date-inscribed 1847

The earliest date-inscribed example in the files is this one associated with Samuel B Cleaver in the 

Brooklyn Museum's Collection. Dawn at Collector With a Needle took a detail shot a few years ago when it was on display.

Possibly from the Cleaver family who lived in this house Linden Hall in Port Penn, Delaware

Massachusetts Project & the Quilt Index

The files have several examples from about 1840 with the strips offering a good place to recycle some old chintz curtains perhaps.

This one may be a little earlier---1830s?

Garth Auctioneers

Rhode Island Project

Collection of the Babcock Smith House

International Quilt Museum

Or some samples.

Connecticut Project---that's a stripe in the alternate plain strip.

UPDATE:

Beth Donaldson of the Quilt Index suggested this one from

Merry Silber's collection be included. Purple perfection.

https://quiltindex.org//view/?type=fullrec&kid=12-8-1365

Observation indicates the pattern originated

about 1840 with the new abundance of cotton prints, favored by New Englanders.

Mid-20th-century

The design became a national pattern

With variations

Triple Strips

Another early one from Indiana University's Museum

With the Prussian blue prints so popular in the 1840's & '50s.

Connecticut Project

About 1900

South Carolina project, attributed to Hattie Jones Sutton 

of Georgia, late 19th century

And then there are variations within the geese...

Hepzibah Prentice, Genesee County, New York

Mid - 19th

Maybe 1850-1875

New York project

1880-1920?

I suppose anything that makes a right triangle could be a goose.

And then I remembered I'd made this reproduction quilt years ago.

Four Quarter Circles: Possibilities and Possible Disasters

 

Looking for a little applique that doesn't require too much prep time

I recalled this little top I made a few years ago.

I enjoy appliqueing these quarter circles  (you can piece yours),

a variation on the classic Drunkard's Path. I found the quarter circles in the

free pile at the guild.

So maybe I should cut some more curves and applique them to squares. 

#1450 Snowball from the Laura Wheeler/Alice Brooks newspaper pattern.

Here's a block that looks to be 1820-1840.

But what else can one do with 4 quarter circles? Maybe I could arrange them differently.

Like #1455 Diagonal Stripes from Aunt Martha.

Frankie Tatum Williams in Mississippi, recorded in the Tennessee project.

What could go wrong?

That might require more concentration than I care to expend.

Slightly different arrangement.

Things could get out of hand quickly.

Two different colors, rotated....

I bet the alternate blocks were once green here

but the color is almost gone.

The possibilities seem endless.

Although not all desirable.

Reptiles.

Some a lot better than others.

From the Lilac Quilt site

https://thelilaccat.com/quilt-gallery/

EQ8 Sketch

Which makes me realize you could offset the strips and

get an effect more like a polka dot (a half drop repeat.)

I think I will stick with simple.

But wait a minute... 2 or 3 sizes of dots....

I have spent way too much time looking at these quarter circle patterns. Over the next couple of months I'll post variations.