Morris Hexathon 18: Parquetry

Morris Hexathon 18: Parquetry by Bettina Havig

Parquetry by Becky Brown

I named this week's hexie Parquetry, 

a word for wood mosaics used in floors and furniture.

Chest with parquet decoration

Parquet floor (pronounced Par'-kay in the U.S.)

A parquet floor would be one more pattern in a thoroughly designed Morris room. An early model for that fashionable room is now called the Green Dining Room at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The restored Green Dining Room

About 1865 Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Company was commissioned to design a refreshment room at the new South Kensington Museum, an important job for the new firm. (In 1899 the museum was renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum to please the Queen.)

This room established several standards for decoration, among them the idea of dividing a wall into separate decorative areas. 

Morris biographer Fiona McCarthy has noted: "This division of the wall surface into three areas -dado, filling and then frieze---would be adopted as the norm for middle class 'artistic' houses of the 1870s and 1880s."

The Green Dining Room is a must-stop for any Morris fan in London.

The work was collaborative. The windows depicts the seasons in glass designed by Edward Burne-Jones.

A ceiling sunburst

Wall and ceiling decoration was by Philip Webb.

Webb's green wall panels have a surface relief. At the top here is the

freize, the strip below the ceiling. 

The V and A Cafe once again serves meals in the Green Dining Room.

The floor is patterned.

Visitors to the Victoria and Albert Museum

need to keep their eyes downcast to appreciate the

marvelous floors of tiles and parquetry all over the building.

The one-patch pattern has no BlockBase number as a Hexagon. It's

often thought of as a triangle, pieced of three tumblers.

Like this detail of Bettina's block

As a triangle it's BlockBase #152a

Names include:

• Right Angle Patchwork from an English needlework book in 1882  (There are no right angles.)
• Ecclesiastical from the Ladies' Art Company catalog about 1898
• Crazy Tile from the Kansas City Star in 1939.

When I made the BlockBase name list years ago I didn't see Nancy Cabot's

 Monk's Puzzle from the Chicago Tribune

Morris Hexathon 18: Parquetry by Ilyse Moore

Pattern for an 8" Hexagon

(4" sides)

To Print:

• Create a word file or a new empty JPG file that is 8-1/2" x 11". 
• Click on the image above. 
• Right click on it and save it to your file. 
• Print that file out 8-1/2" x 11". The hexagon side should measure 4" across.
• Adjust the printed page size if necessary.
• Add seams when you cut the fabric.

One More Inspiration

Parquetry teaboxes

Floor in the Catherine Palace in Russia

Mosaic tile floor at the Victoria & Albert