Block · Nine-patches
Churn Dash
A nine patch with triangles in the corners and rectangles on the sides, named after the plunger of a butter churn.
- Other names
- Hole in the Barn Door · Monkey Wrench · Sherman's March
- Known from
- USA, second half of the 1800s onwards
- First known print
- "Churn Dash" is in Marie Webster's list of quilt names of 1915.
- Origin
- Unknown, as for most traditional blocks
- Brackman no.
- 1646a
- Family
- Nine-patches
- Difficulty
- Medium · Triangles, geese and other angles cut with a ruler
- Grid
- 3 × 3 cells
History
The block has had many names: Monkey Wrench, Hole in the Barn Door, Lincoln's Platform, Sherman's March and more, which Barbara Brackman's encyclopedia gathers under one number. Churn Dash is explained by the dasher pushed up and down in a butter churn; that is an explanation, not a documented naming.
Early dated examples are few; the museum in Lincoln has a Monkey Wrench from 1880–1910. The warlike names do not make it a Civil War block: Brackman points out that such names were favourites when patterns were named and sold in 1890–1940.
How it is used
The corners are half-square triangles and the sides two rectangles, so it is cut with a ruler and suits both scraps and two colours. It is set in rows, often with sashing or plain blocks between, and stands well on point.
With plain squares on the sides instead of rectangles it is close to Shoo Fly.
Quilts with the block
Churn Dash on point
13 blocks on point · 44⅛" × 44⅛"
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 International Quilt Museum: Monkey Wrench (Churn Dash), 1880–1910
- Book Marie D. Webster: Quilts: Their Story and How to Make Them (1915)
- Article Barbara Brackman: Quilts & Sherman's March (2018)
- Museum International Quilt Museum: Underground Railroad Quilts?
- Book Barbara Brackman: Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns (1993)