Block · Geese and triangles
Chevron
Rows of half-square triangles meeting in a V, so the colours make a zigzag across the quilt.
- Other names
- Zigzag · Siksak
- Known from
- Zigzags in quilts from the 1800s; this very construction is not documented
- First known print
- We have found no print of this very block. The nearest is Carrie Hall's sample block Zig Zag, or Streak of Lightning from the early 1900s, but it is sewn from tall triangles.
- Origin
- Unknown, as for most traditional blocks
- Family
- Geese and triangles
- Difficulty
- Medium · Triangles, geese and other angles cut with a ruler
- Grid
- 4 × 4 cells
History
The zigzag is old, but has many names and is sewn in many ways. Barbara Brackman gives Streak O'Lightning, Zig Zag, Old Garden Wall, General Sherman's Quilt and Depression Quilt for a staircase of Bricks, and the museum in Los Angeles calls the same pattern Zigzag or Streak of Lightning on a child's quilt from about 1880. The International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska, has a Streak of Lightning from 1840–1860, possibly from New England, that seems to be sewn from slanted strips. The Quilters' Guild in York has a Chevron from 1880–1900 of strips sewn in Vs.
Nearest to this block comes a Streak of Lightning from 1880–1920 in Lincoln, possibly from Berks County, Pennsylvania, with bands of equal width; the photo cannot settle whether it is sewn from triangles. As a border the zigzag is older still: Brackman shows medallion quilts dated 1796 and 1804 with zigzag borders. We have not found the name Chevron for this very block in old sources.
How it is used
The block is sixteen half-square triangles, facing each other in turn along each row, with the colours swapped from row to row. Set side by side, as in Chevron, the zigzag runs unbroken across the quilt.
Quilts with the block
Chevron
4 × 5 blocks · 54" × 66"
Related blocks
Sources
The text is our own, written from the sources below. Photos of old quilts with the block are in the museums' collections.
- Museum Spencer Museum of Art: Carrie A. Hall, Zig Zag, or Streak of Lightning block
- Article Barbara Brackman: Tessellations 2: Four-Sided Shapes (2015)
- Museum Los Angeles County Museum of Art: Child's Quilt, "Zigzag" or "Streak of Lightning", c. 1880
- Museum International Quilt Museum: Streak of Lightning, possibly New England, 1840–1860
- Museum International Quilt Museum: Streak of Lightning, possibly Berks County, Pennsylvania, 1880–1920
- Museum The Quilters' Guild: Chevron strippy, 1880–1900
- Article Barbara Brackman: Zig-Zag Borders (2012)