Cloud of Quilt Patterns: Oklahoma Rainbows and Snakes

Quilt from the 1950-1970 years by Lillie Justus Story of

Valliant, Oklahoma.

Buckboard Quilts in Oklahoma City

I included this pattern in the 3rd edition of the Encyclopedia using Lillie's quilt as an example. (#1505.5) The design has many cousins but I could not find a published version with the double arcs making a ring.

Buy this quilt from Judy Howard at Oklahoma City's buckboard Antiques

https://www.buckboardquilts.com/images/6904%20depr%20snowball.jpg

Bonnie over at the QuiltHistorySouth Facebook group found one published in Better Homes and Gardens's book Grandma’s Best Blocks from 2002.

But there has to be an earlier source.

Variations on this design have been driving me crazy. How to classify them? I realize now what the problem is.

#3350 & Relatives

I've been looking in the wrong place---four patches. Here is where to find the pattern and its sources in BlockBase (and the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.) I saw this (40 years ago) as a double fan,
a rather obscure category. The block is usually published in this single repeat but Lillie above turned that repeat into a four-patch.

The Rainbow Quilt (Date?)

As you can see in the Encyclopedia the Kansas City Star

published this pattern at least three times.

Drunkard's Trail in 1942

"This wavering design comes from [Arkansas reader]."

Pattern tells you to piece most of it in strings.

And people did.

From Julie Silber's Inventory, looks 1940s-50s

Spearheads & Quarter Circles, Kansas City Star, June 1956

Don't have a photo of this clipping.

The Star did not tell you to set it as a four-patch to make circles. And many people set it side by side.

Many people in Oklahoma.

Like a woman with the wonderful name of Arizona Sullivan,

according to the label on an Oklahoma quilt top sold on EBay a few years ago.

Closeups look like she used feedsacks for her backgrounds.

The Star, published in Missouri, had a subsidiary newspaper focused on agriculture, the Weekly Star Farmer with an Oklahoma edition and that seems to be the link that connects these quilts.