Block · Geese and triangles
Lady of the Lake
A large half-square triangle in the middle with a frame of small half-square triangles round it.
- Known from
- USA, from the 1840s
- First known print
- The name is known from the Ladies' Art Company's catalogue around 1890 and is in Marie Webster's list of 1915.
- Origin
- Unknown, as for most traditional blocks
- Family
- Geese and triangles
- Difficulty
- Medium · Triangles, geese and other angles cut with a ruler
- Grid
- 5 × 5 cells
History
The pattern is older than the name. Barbara Brackman shows early versions in an album dated 1842–43 and a sampler of 1851, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has a Lady of the Lake from about 1840 from Virginia. The name is first seen when the Ladies' Art Company sold the block around 1890.
In 1915 Webster names Lady of the Lake as one of the names taken from poetry and romance. Walter Scott's poem The Lady of the Lake of 1810 sold 25,000 copies in eight months, and it is natural to think the block is named after it; no source shows it, though. The block has also been called Lost Ship, and a pattern syndicate in the 1900s called it Lady in the White House.
How it is used
Brackman writes that in a quilt of repeated blocks the large half-square triangle is the block. The frame of small triangles in the same two colours makes the blocks stand out sharply when they are set together.
It is often sewn in red and white or pink and white. The Henry Ford has a pink and white one from about 1895. It is related to Birds in the Air, which is also built of small triangles.
Quilts with the block
Lady of the Lake
4 × 5 blocks · 48" × 58"
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.
- Book Marie D. Webster: Quilts: Their Story and How to Make Them (1915)
- Article Barbara Brackman: Antebellum Album #2: Lend & Borrow (2018)
- Article Barbara Brackman: Washington Whirlwind #9: Lady in the White House (2024)
- Museum Los Angeles County Museum of Art: Quilt, "Lady of the Lake", c. 1840
- Museum The Henry Ford: Lady of the Lake Quilt, circa 1895
- Article Wikipedia: The Lady of the Lake (poem)