Block · Geese and triangles
Square in a Square
A square on point inside a square, with four triangles in the corners.
- Other names
- Diamond in a Square · Kvadrat i kvadrat
- Known from
- USA, from the early 1800s; named in print in the 1930s
- First known print
- According to Barbara Brackman the block was first named in print in the 1930s, as Triangle Design in the magazine Woman's World in 1931.
- Origin
- Unknown, as for most traditional blocks
- Brackman no.
- 2375a
- Family
- Geese and triangles
- Difficulty
- Medium · Triangles, geese and other angles cut with a ruler
- Grid
- 2 × 2 cells
History
The block is far older than its names. Barbara Brackman shows quilts with it from about 1810–1840, one from New Jersey dated 1832 and one from the Shenandoah Valley from about 1840, and she writes that it was most popular between 1890 and 1920. Today most people call it Square in a Square or Diamond in a Square; Brackman also gives Broken Sash.
The International Quilt Museum in Lincoln has a small hand-pieced quilt of the block from 1890–1910 and one from 1984 by Yvonne Wells of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, made of knit fabrics. The old name Economy at the Ladies' Art Company (no. 264) and Carrie Hall's Economy Patch belong to a close relative with two rounds: a square in a square in a square. Marie Webster has Economy in 1915 among the plain everyday names.
How it is used
The block is a square with four triangles sewn to its sides. It is set side by side, alternating with plain squares or with sashing, and stands well in a quilt on point.
Alternate light and dark centres from block to block and the corner triangles make stars between the blocks; Barbara Brackman calls it counterchange. With more rounds it becomes Economy, and with smaller corner triangles, so the middle becomes an octagon, Snowball.
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.
- Article Barbara Brackman: Square in a Square/Diamond in a Square (2019)
- Article Barbara Brackman: Square Roots (2021)
- Museum International Quilt Museum: Square in a Square crib quilt, 1890–1910
- Museum International Quilt Museum: Yvonne Wells, Square in a Square, 1984
- Book Ladies' Art Company: Diagrams of Quilt, Sofa and Pin Cushion Patterns (1898)
- Book Marie D. Webster: Quilts: Their Story and How to Make Them (1915)
- Museum Spencer Museum of Art: Carrie A. Hall, Economy Patch block
- Museum International Quilt Museum: Center Diamond ("Cape"), Lancaster County, c. 1915–1935
- Museum International Quilt Museum: Center Diamond, Lancaster County, c. 1920–1940