Chrome Orange: Background and Accent

Flavin sent a snapshot of a quilt with an unusual pattern.

She thinks it's from Alabama.

It's not that the piecing is unusual, it's just a star made of diamonds, but the shading and the way the star is finished off as a circle seems unique.

Several characteristics indicate it's a Southern quilt from the end of the 19th century.

• The fan quilting (see it in the border.)
• The wide sashing pieced of strips
• The color scheme of solids with chrome orange as the neutral or the background. (See the last post for a Carolina applique with a yellow ground.)

Not that Southerners were the only quilters who thought chrome orange made a perfect background.

Here's a Pennsylvania quilt from an on-line auction. Women in southeastern Pennsylvania  used a lot of the shade between 1875 and 1925.

Shades of reddish-brown solids are sometimes used as a substitute for a brighter, more expensive red. 

The idea of yellow-orange as a background continued into the 20th century. Purple and yellow---perfect complements. (Mid-20th-century yellow golds are dyed with other dyes. Chrome is poisonous and not used in the U.S. anymore.)

Chrome orange in a Whigs' Defeat design.

 (The South? Mid to Late 19th century?)

That pieced sashing and the large blocks on the square makes me think late-19th century.

The fabric also made a terrific accent color.

More Pennsylvania

Berks County, Pennsylvania

This one could be from anywhere.

Do a web search for:

 chrome orange reproduction quilt

and you will come up with some sources for this shade in solids.

Buy 5 yards....You need it.

(I know, I'm an enabler.)

See more quilts with chrome orange from the Quilt Index

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=18-36-6D5

This one from Iowa is probably end of the 19th-century rather than Civil-War-era as the family thought.

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=46-7A-171

From the DAR Museum

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=4C-83-528

From Quilts of Tennessee

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=21-41-E8

From the New England Quilt Museum

And view my posts with chrome orange quilts here:

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2010/02/chrome-orange-chrome-yellow.html

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2009/12/chrome-orange.html

Chrome Orange & Chrome Yellow

Mariner's Compass - 1880-1920

Many quilters working from about 1880-1920 used chrome colors as the neutral or the background in their quilts, a rather radical idea that very conservative women in Pennsylvania and the South found quite acceptable. Here are a few more pictures of quilts using yellows, some as accent, some as theme. The one below is from the Quilt Complex. I'm dating them fairly loosely from these snapshots.

Feathered Star 1880-1920

The two below are from dealer Laura Fisher

Princess Feather 1880-1920

Delectable Mountains 1860-1890

The rest I found in online auctions.

Star 1880-1910

Sugar Loaf 1880-1910

The block in this one is hard to figure out. Here's a diagram from my BlockBase software program.

For more about BlockBase click here:

http://www.electricquilt.com/Shop/BlockBase/BlockBase.asp

Pincushion or Orange Peel dated 1887

Ann Champion's blog shows a lot of antique quilts. She's fond of yellow.

http://annchampion.com/

Variation of the Whigs Defeat, 1850-1920

Monkey Wrench Variation 1890-1920 (It looks like a tiny Log Cabin in the corners of the block)

Log Cabin 1880-1920

Now go out and buy some yellow fabric. The boss reports that yellow doesn't sell as well as other colors--like blue, red or green. That's a shame.

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.