Blocks That Are Not Square: Triangular Blocks

Quilters working towards the end of the 19th century followed a 

fashion for triangular blocks.

Variations were given names in print at the time and later. 

This one pieced of 9 triangles is BlockBase #201, published as the Pyramid or Sugar Loaf about 30 years ago. It doesn't matter what shape the triangle is as long as it's the same triangle.

Sugarloaf Mountain in Brazil

"Sugarloaf" to us tends to mean a landscape feature, a ski hill for example. Those cone-shaped hills were named for their resemblance to the common packaging of sugar, which was molded into a cone for shipping and sale.

Sugar molding

Four equilateral triangles in the classic red and blue

color scheme from about 1900.

Looks a little older with more brown.

An early version with 9 triangles, perhaps

1840-1870. From Cindy Adams collection.

Same block---different set, about 1900.

Too bad about that blue green being so fugitive: about 1900

One can keep adding triangles.....

Collection: Shwenkfelder Library

Here's one by Annie Dorothea Walker documented in the Texas project,

from the Quilt Index. Apparently Annie had a hard

time thinking outside the square block.

Two triangles make a diamond.

And most of us call this triangle pieced of diamonds Sugar Loaf today.

It's BlockBase #204. Published names:

Sugar Loaf

Flat Iron

Arrowheads

Cabot says:

"The old fashioned reliable flat-iron furnished the inspiration for today's quilt pattern, just as many other homely household articles have been represented in our early American examples of quilting. So numerous are the quilts of this pattern it has been impossible to trace its origin."

A flat iron with triangular nose.

Nancy says she couldn't trace the pattern origins but variations on this design seem to appear about 1870.

A top from Cindy Rennels shop, about 1880-1900

A repro quilt. Pattern is

Signal Flags Civil War Legacy by Carol Hopkins.

A different geometry.

All three of these about 1900...

See a sew-along for a repro of this quilt from Linda here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/609616972521606/

BlockBase #202,

which Carrie Hall called Triangular Triangle in the 1930s.

Collector Phyllis Haders found an example she dated to 1865.

In geometry this subdivided triangle system is known as 

Sierpinski's Triangle.

Or Pascal's Triangle.

A Cosmati tile floor at Rome's Santa Maria Church,

perhaps dating to the 13th century.

One can go on and on.

Learn a little more about Sierpinski's triangles here:
http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/fractals/

And a LOT more here:
https://www.zeuscat.com/andrew/chaos/sierpinski.html

Triangular blocks with no BlockBase numbers,

indicating patterns were not published before 1970.

About 1900-1920.

Maybe the 1940s

1880-1920

Read more about sugarloaves here:

http://www.oldandinteresting.com/sugar-nippers.aspx

And flatirons here:

http://www.collectorsweekly.com/tools-and-hardware/sad-and-flat-irons

Kelly Ashton, Painted Mountains

And then there's Jane Stickle who did this triangular pieced border in 1861.