Celtic connections

How to make a quilt on a celtic theme without using interlacing motifs? This is my personal challenge-within-a-challenge, as I plan a 24" square piece for CQ's challenge for the Quilters' Guild AGM in March 2009. The theme is Celtic Connections, and for some reason my first thought was of Visigoths, who made objects like this crown:
But it turns out the Visigoths weren't celts; in fact their kingdom (418-508) didn't include the celtic areas in northern Spain, Asturias and Galicia.

And celts fall into two linguistic groups, known as P and Q, what a coincidence for a P&Q challenge! Of the seven celtic nations, P celts comprise Welsh, Cornish,Breton; Q celts comprise Irish, Scottish, Manx, Galician. Before contact with the Latin world, Q celts didn't have a P sound, they used a sound that's usually written as C -- so in Welsh the word for head is "penn" and in Ireland it's "ceann".

But it's visual connections we're after -- language=writing, yes? Think runes ... think ogham script - and I'd better check out the celtic connection of those -- they could turn out to be anglo-saxon or norse...Some fascinating info about runes: 'The name "rune" is a fairly recent term, and was originally thought to have evolved from the German word raunen, which means "to cut or carve." Yet an examination of older German dictionaries long since retired from general use reveals that raunen once meant "to whisper secrets" and "Rune" (always capitalized then) was the noun for "secret" (also written "Run" or "Runa").'In thinking about this topic, I'm pulling relevant books off the shelf and leafing through, waiting for the random thoughts. Making little sketches on backs of envelopes. Most of all, it's amazing to have the wonderful resource of the internet to roam around in. This bit of background conjures up many visions:

• To the ancients, the Heavens appeared to wheel overhead, turning on an axis which points to the north polar stars. At the crown of the axis, a circle of stars revolved about a fixed point, the Celestial Pole, which was believed to be the location of Heaven. At the base of the axis was the Omphalos, the circular altar of the Goddess' temple. The universe of stars turning on this axis formed a spiral path, or stairway, on which souls ascended to Heaven.

• This Sun-wise, clockwise, or deiseal (Gaelic), motion of the spirals represented the Summer Sun. The continuous spirals with seemingly no beginning or end signified that as one cycle ended another began ­ eternal life. The spiral's never-ending, always expanding, motion also symbolized the ever- increasing nature of information and knowledge. Many of these symbols often also appeared in triplicate, a sign of the divine.

Ah yes, spirals fraught with symbolism -