Mariner's Compass Based on Five

Online auction, attributed to North Carolina

A Mariner's Compass but instead of the usual divisions of 6 or 8

this one is based on 5 with a pentagon in the center.

1880-1925?

Smithsonian collection

It's an old design. The version above is from a sampler

dated 1844 made for Susan & Henry Underwood of Baltimore.

But I've never found a published pattern.

Which means it's not in BlockBase

The pattern should be in there and since I am adding unpublished, traditional blocks to the new edition I am giving it a number --- with a circle in the center "#3691 from a quilt dated 1844."

Pentagon in the center #3692.

The drafting artists at Electric Quilt will have fun with these. Circumstances have put us way behind schedule on the BlockBase revision, thinking now to get it done next winter.

Unusual center #3693.

You could use this 8-inch picture for a pattern of sorts.

The five-pointed compass design seems to have been passed around in the upland South around 1900.

Here's a beauty from the North Carolina Museum of History, by

Elizabeth Jennie Roach Witherington & Lydia Chapman Roach

Susan Brackney Clayton (1838 1848-1941)

From the Indiana project & the Quilt Index

Lightened up a little. Circle in the center.

Family story: 1850-1860 but it's 1880-1930 by style

UPDATE: Found a photo of Susan & her quilt at her Find-A-Grave site:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/41514397/susan-a-clayton

Arizona Project & the Quilt Index.

Made by in Osage County, Missouri although she was a recent

Arkansas immigrant.

Unusual borders.

Circle? Pentagon?

Online auction

These last three look to be about 1880-1930 with

the distinctive solid-color style in block and sashing. 

The whole idea fitting into the Southern aesthetic of spiky points and circles.

Similar fabrics but no strong sashing by Anna Sophia Schiller, 

Arizona Project & the Quilt Index

 Online auction

Following her own muse...

20th century?

No pattern. I'm waiting for the new BlockBase.

Sunburst with Spiky Points

I'm not going to be piecing this triple sunburst any time soon but it's interesting how

many stitchers took on the challenge in the past.

Northeast Auctions offered this wonder in pink, points and applique a few years ago.

1856

Source?

Elaborate appliqued borders would indicate mid-19th-century style.

Nancy Cummins Kaylor from Jefferson County, Indiana.

Indiana Project & the Quilt Index.

Collection of the Iowa State Historical Society

Another said to have been made in Indiana by 

Mrs. R.L. Whittington, Iowa Project.

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=18-36-199

These last two, a little more austere in the applique, are both thought

to date from the last quarter of the 19th century.

The pattern has a BlockBase number #3469 although it was not published until the 1970s.

You can see the center as a sunburst with two rings around it.

Wyoming Project

Several examples from 1890-1930 survive. These are certainly graphic.

Joanna Rose's collection

Turn- of-the-last-century examples usually have nine blocks.

Source?

Some kind of communication going on about how these are supposed to look.

Unusual in its use of prints. 

The caption for has read that it was stitched by Eliza McCardle Johnson (1810-1876), wife of President Andrew Johnson, but since she died years before the blues were fashionable that whole story is highly suspect.

See another dubious link to Eliza Johnson and quilts here:

https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/eliza-mccardle-johnson/

The Arizona Project recorded a pair in the same prints attributed to Rhoda 

Marshall & Thelma Lines, perhaps made in Colorado or Arizona.

Roberta Horton found this one with half blocks along the side in Oklahoma.

Source?

You can find sunbursts with more than 3 rings...

Source?

And fewer than 3 rings,

but the version with three rings seems to have been some kind of pattern fad.

Julie Silber's Inventory

Red and '30s green with an ice-cream cone border, clues to

a post 1930 date.

Here's a BlockBase pattern based on a central sunburst with 14 spokes. Print it out as is for a 15" finished block.

A relative---star in the center instead of sunburst---documented in the Arizona project, made in Kentucky in 1937. Arrie Ethel Boggs Wheeler (1889-1942) "offered to piece the circles with tiny triangles if [Emma Wheeler] would provide material. Emma then put it together." Emma's daughter recalled it as made in 1937. So Arrie specialized in the spiky points. See a post about this cooperative quilt here:

https://womensworkquilts.blogspot.com/2019/10/piecing-on-shares.html

Odd Pattern That Must Have a Commercial Source

Fratie Pearl Lilly Epling-Wyatt (1899-1977), Mercer County, West Virginia

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=50-8A-E01

Pearl's family who brought it to the West Virginia project thought it might have been made in the 1950s but I wouldn't be surprised to find it from the 1960s or early '70s, when many these snakes of double arcs were fashionable.

It is an unusual pattern, a variation of the double fan or snake.

From Mark French's ebay store

It must have been a commercial pattern as these similar quilts from ebay show

Any ideas?

Pieced Woman

MCKISSICK MUSEUM COLLECTION 2001.11

Poking around in my Southern quilts file I found this pieced woman

that looks to have been made about 1940-1960

Brown, black and white female figures.

The quilt was displayed in their recent exhibit.

FIGURATIVE APPLIQUE, ORIGINAL PATTERN
MAKER UNKNOWN
SOUTHEAST. CA. 1950
THE BLOCK-STYLE QUILT FEATURES 20 0FF-WHITE, BLACK AND BROWN FEMALE FIGURES WITH OUTSTRETCHED ARMS. IT APPEARS THE MAKER OF THIS QUILT MAY HAVE ADAPTED A PAPER DOLL PATTERN FOR HER ORIGINAL DESIGN. THE FIGURES ON SOME BLOCKS ARE ENTIRELY MACHINE PIECED; OTHER HAVE MACHINE-PIECED BODIES WITH HAND APPLIQUÉD HEADS, SUGGESTING PERHAPS MORE THAN ONE PERSON WORKED ON THE QUILT. IT IS HAND-QUILTED IN A CLAM SHELL PATTERN. (MCKISSICK MUSEUM COLLECTION 2001.11.XX)

The curators through it might be an original design but there's a similar

pieced block in a quilt at the North Carolina Museum of History.

20th century? From the Just Folk Gallery inventory.

Most of the blues have faded leaving her white face (no hair or hat)

to fade into the background.

Although the design may not have been published when these quilts were made 

 it looks to have been handed around.

And if it looks familiar....

The very influential Linda Brannock used a version

in her "primitive" patterns around the year 2000.

Hat a good idea!