Welcome to my family quilts series. This is installment number 8, if you’re keeping track (though I’m keeping track for you over there in the side bar — I’ll get that list updated when I get back from vacation). And if you’re interested, there are at least 15 more to go. Yep. 15. Brew a cup of tea and stay a while!

I actually wanted to call this one “Ball and Chain” because for some reason the color choices in this quilt make me think of prison stripes. But I thought if someone were looking for it later they might have an easier time if I just called it “White Double Wedding Ring.” So there you have it.

This quilt from my Great Grandma Roloff has suffered the ravages of time and the worse ravages of a very damp cellar where it was stored for decades. This is a traditional double wedding ring pattern on white (compare it to the Red Double Wedding Ring quilt I posted about previously). I find it interesting how different an effect you get by varying the background color. This quilt is hand pieced and hand quilted with a solid white back and green binding.

Unfortunately, this quilt definitely has gotten wet, and some of the fabrics have bled. Especially that sherbert-y orange. It’s quite sad looking in person. If anyone knows of any way to get this out, do let me know. Though it has probably been like that for decades….

So, what really strikes me about this quilt is that while sometimes the rings appear to be randomly pieced, in other instances there is a very definite alternating of two fabrics. This gives the quilt a very stripey effect, and is what makes me think of prison stripes when I look at it. But she did switch it up and use different pairs of fabrics for each quarter of a ring, as far as I can tell. In fact, there seem to be primarily two fabrics per 1/4 of a ring until she got to the outside of the quilt. Maybe she suddenly did not have enough fabric to continue the pattern at that point and opted to finish it off with just random fabrics? We’ll never know! Also, she has consistently used a green and white four patch at the corners where the rings meet that helps to tie it all together.


And some cute little X’s in the centers of the rings.