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Block · Stars

Ohio Star

A nine patch with hourglasses on its sides, so an eight-pointed star stands in the middle: known in quilts from the early 1800s.

Other names
Ohio-stjerne
Known from
USA, from about 1810; much used until about 1920
First known print
The name "Ohio Star" is in Carrie Hall and Rose Kretsinger's book of 1935. What the block was called before is not known.
Origin
Unknown, as for most traditional blocks
Brackman no.
1631
Family
Stars
Difficulty
Medium · Triangles, geese and other angles cut with a ruler
Grid
3 × 3 cells

History

The oldest dated example in Barbara Brackman's files is from 1811: a medallion quilt in the Cincinnati Art Museum with a printed centre panel by John Hewson. Others are dated 1832 and 1843.

The fabrics follow the times: chintz about 1820–50, scraps of many fabrics 1840–90, and claret and blue about 1890–1920. The name is younger than the block. Brackman writes that we do not know what quilters called it during the Civil War; in the 1930s Carrie Hall gathered several names for the same block, Ohio Star, Texas Star and Lone Star among them.

How it is used

The sides are hourglasses (quarter-square triangles), the corners and centre plain squares, so the block is cut with a ruler. It is set in rows, often with plain blocks between, and was used in medallion quilts and album quilts.

It is related to Sawtooth Star, whose points are geese instead of hourglasses, and to every star built on a Nine Patch.

Quilts with the block

Sources

The text is our own, written from the sources below. Photos of old quilts with the block are in the museums' collections.

  1. Article Barbara Brackman: Ohio Star: Nine Patch Stars (2019)
  2. Article Barbara Brackman: Civil War Quilts: Ohio Star (2011)
  3. Museum Spencer Museum of Art: Carrie A. Hall, Ohio Star block
  4. Book Barbara Brackman: Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns (1993)
All sources and thanks