Arabic Lattice: An Exercise in Tessellation

Arabic Lattice

The editors who designed the Kansas City Star Quilts Sampler picked some

of the more interesting block printed in the newspaper.

Arabic Lattice is down in the bottom row on the left.

Read more about the book here:

https://www.ctpub.com/the-kansas-city-star-quilts-sampler/

I'd guess that Ruby Short McKim designed the pattern for the newspaper

and it appeared in her 1931 book 101 Quilt Patterns.

Here's what her book says:

"For those who want something different again and who do not mind fitting around corners to achieve the results we suggest 'Arabic Lattice.' The originator of this old pattern must have had a flair for the romantic as witnessed by the name as well as an aptitude for work, as the little blocks are really difficult to piece."

It's not that hard to piece! But it might be hard to get the right effect what with rotating the blocks. McKim suggested two different blocks, one flipped.

The Nancy Cabot column in the Chicago Tribune offered the same pattern.

I found this drawing on the internet. Perhaps McKim had seen something like this.

Not many people made the pattern.

I also found this version floating around the internet

and it may be recent.

Cindy's Antique Quilts sold a two-color version a few years ago.

I found only 3 or 4 on the Quilt Index

This a bad photo of an interesting composition in 1930s green

and lilac from the Rhode Island project.

And this  nicely done version in the Henry Ford

Museum collection, made by Cora Owen who sent

it to Henry Ford as a Christmas gift in 1935.

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=1E-3D-27AA

You could set it other ways---much like the Radio Windmill, which is the same basic structure.
See a post here:
http://encyclopediaquiltpatterns.blogspot.com/2018/11/radio-windmill-from-kansas-city-star.html

One block repeated going one way.

One block with the alternate rotated. 

Two blocks alternating, the way McKim showed it,

three colors.

The block structure is unusual. BlockBase has 9 published patterns

based on the same seam lines.

Here's #2568 Triangle Puzzle from the Ladies' Art Company

or Triangle Trails from Nancy Cabot

A Quick Quilt of 16 identical blocks.

Tessellated Potential.