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Block · Curves

Rings

Four quarter rings with their middles together: one whole ring round a round centre.

Other names
Quarter ring · Ringe
Known from
The same seams in the USA from about 1900; the one-colour ring is not documented
First known print
We have found no one-colour ring of four quarters in print. Barbara Brackman found none either and calls a block from the Kansas City Star of 1943 the closest, but it has more seams.
Origin
Unknown, as for most traditional blocks
Family
Curves
Difficulty
Hard · Curves and skewed angles, cut from templates
Grid
2 × 2 cells

History

Rings is our own name. The same seams are known as Fair Play, Brackman's number 1482, but with the colours swapped from quarter to quarter, so the ring is not of one fabric. According to her index it was printed as Quarter Turn in Woman's World in 1907, as Wedding Ring in Dakota Farmer in 1927 and as Pig Pen in the Kansas City Star in 1939, and the Ladies' Art Company later had it as no. 454. The International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska, has a hand-pieced red and white Fair Play from 1880–1920.

It is not the same as two well-known blocks. Double Wedding Ring is rings of pieced arcs that interlock; its earliest printed pattern is according to Brackman from Capper's Weekly in October 1928, and the oldest dated quilt she knows is from 1910. And Snowball at the Ladies' Art Company (no. 104) and in Carrie Hall's collection is round discs with no hole.

How it is used

The curves are cut from a template and sewn as in Drunkard's Path. Set side by side the rings stand in rows; with the colours swapped from quarter to quarter you get Fair Play.

Sources

The text is our own, written from the sources below. Photos of old quilts with the block are in the museums' collections.

  1. Article Barbara Brackman: Rings in a Square (2017)
  2. Museum International Quilt Museum: Fair Play, 1880–1920
  3. Article Barbara Brackman: Grandmother's Choice: Fair Play (2013)
  4. Article Barbara Brackman: Kansas City Star Quilt Patterns: A List (2020)
  5. Book Ladies' Art Company: Diagrams of Quilt, Sofa and Pin Cushion Patterns (1898)
  6. Museum Spencer Museum of Art: Carrie A. Hall, Snowball block (curved)
  7. Article Barbara Brackman: Double Wedding Rings (2010)
  8. Article Barbara Brackman: DWR 1: Oldest Double Wedding Ring (2017)
All sources and thanks