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Propeller Blocks ***

>Here are our four-point X-oriented star blocks so far. Click on the small icons to go directly to the block.

Spider Web Electric Fan, No. 2 Connec-ticut Kaleido-scope Semi-Octagon Block Island Puzzle The Mayflower Okla-homa's Square Dance Maltese Cross Double Z

Spider Web Spider Web (three colors) Spider Web Finley 1929 Spider Web (four colors) The Spider Web Ruth Finley published this block in her 1929 book Old Patchwork Quilts. The block shares a name with several others, notably a six-sided scrap block that resembles either a Log Cabin or a string block, depending on how it's constructed. (It's a string block if all the fabric strips are sewn onto a separate backing; it's a log cabin if all the strips are sewn to each other.)

ElectricFan, No. 2 Electric Fan, No. 2 (half of blocks turned 180º) Electric Fan, No. 2 Stone 1906 Electric Fan, No. 2 is block #42 in the 1906 booklet Practical Needlework by Clara Stone. The graphic at left is traced from a photo of the original. Oddly enough, the block is a five-patch (5 by 5 squares). Ordinarily, a block requires an even number of squares in its grid to have a center point. Here, however, it is the width of the small dark triangles at upper right and left that determine the grid size. The center point comes from the lines drawn from the corners of those triangles. Weird, huh? The two darker triangles also pose some interesting possibilities for quilt layout. For the first Electric Fan, click here:

Connecticut Connecticut Connecticut Hearth & Home Connecticut in four colorsShoemaker's Puzzle/Block Island Puzzle It's never been clear to us how the word "Puzzle" could be attached to so many relatively simple blocks. Still, by any other name, Connecticut was, and is, a puzzle. Perhaps it is because in a whole quilt, the block forms the same pattern as Priscilla. To see Priscilla, click here:

Kaleidoscope Kaleidoscope (Holstein) Kaleidoscope Holstein 1973 Kaleidoscope showed up in 1973 in Holstein's The Pieced Quilt, according to Barbara Brackman. It has no quarter-block seams. Otherwise, for all practical purposes, it is identical to Connecticut. Either way, both blocks are ever so slightly different in proportions to Hall's Semi-Octagon from 1935 ( below).

Semi-Octagon Semi-Octagon Semi-Octagon Hall 1935 Will o' the Wisp/The Windmill Blades The oldest of this block's names is Semi-Octagon, from the mid-1930s, when Carrie Hall included it among her collection of quilt blocks now at the University of Kansas' Spencer Museum of Art. Will o' the Wisp (a "delusive or elusive goal," per Merriam-Webster) came along in 1945, in Farm Journal & Farmer's Wife. Finally, the Kansas City Star came up with The Windmill Blades in 1954. It's drawn on a 12 by 12 grid, which makes it ever so slightly different in proportions from Holstein's Kaleidoscope.

Block Island Puzzle Block Island Puzzle Block Island Puzzle Quilters' Newsletter Magazine #66. Block Island, thirteen miles south of mainland Rhode Island, has been a stopping point for Captain Kidd and a final port for five large sunken ships, and is now the site of a yearly week-long sailing regatta and its attendant hullaballoo. Quilters' Newsletter Magazine as its #66, according to Barbara Brackman. Brackman cites Hearth & Home for the names of the Connecticut block, above. Like Connecticut, Block Island Puzzle has a parallel in a four-point star called Crossed Canoes. To see that block, click here:

The Mayflower The Mayflower The Mayflower Ladies World Magazine, 1893 Mayflower Quilt/Mayflower First published in Ladies' World Magazine in 1893, The Mayflower was republished in 1933 in the Detroit Free Press; Nancy Page, the columnist, called it Mayflower Quilt. It was also in Nancy Cabot's Chicago Tribune column in 1934 as Mayflower. The block has four quarter-blocks with a five-sided patch in each. In drawing up this graphic, we followed the lead of quilt designer Jinny Beyer, whose Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns describes it as a block of 14 by 14 squares.

Oklahoma's Square Dance Oklahoma's Square Dance Oklahoma's Square Dance Kansas City Star, 1942 A 1957 design from the Kansas City Star, Oklahoma's Square Dance was sent in by a Tulsa reader. The block shows why we don't separate propeller shapes into X and plus blocks: This one could be either.

Maltese Cross Maltese Cross in two colors Maltese Cross Ladies Art Co., #272 1897 Maltese Cross in three colors Iron Cross The Ladies Art Company published this block as its #272 in 1897. Nancy Cabot, when it was published in 1935 in the Chicago Tribune, called it Iron Cross. The Ladies Art Company's Maltese Cross shape is a variation of St. George's Cross, which is usually a straightforward plus (+) shape.

Double Z Double Z Double Z Louisville Farm & Friends 1883 Double Z with alternating colors The LAC's second Double Z, #360, apparently didn't catch on the way #192 did, because #360 goes by the name the LAC gave it. Both are drawn on 6x6 grids. See the other, called Brown Goose, here: Double Z is in fact older than the LAC's 1897 catalog. It appeared in an 1883 Louisville Farm and Friends, according to Beyer's Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns.