The ragged wings would make me think they wouldn't work well, but these butterflies seem always to look this way. A fritillary of some sort. Looks most like a gulf fritillary but really shouldn't be this far north, although NC is considered a southern US state.
You all are so kind with your comments and favs. Thank you so much. I've been seeing these along with the monarchs stopping off in the garden recently and thought they were small monarchs. I'm afraid it's the last of the butterfly photos since they stopped coming two days ago. They must have known there was a cold front blowing through and they needed to get ahead of it.