Nine Patches: BlockBase 1601-1621

Nine Patches

Equal proportions in the three strips that make up a nine-patch

Ella Hapgood Ward, Date-inscribed 1859

Shrewsbury, Massachusetts

Mass Quilt Project & the Quilt Index

BlockBase #1601 b

Nine Patch by Elizabeth Nace

Date-inscribed 1786 From Lancaster County Heritage collection

BlockBase #1601a

It's one of the oldest American patchwork designs.

From the Rhode Island Project and the Quilt Index.

Set in strips of chintz.

The shading makes the patterns look different although

they are the same block, equal-sized squares.

This mid-20th-century quiltmaker ignored shading in the

blocks but carefully shaded the setting squares.

Four Patches in a Nine Patch---Five to a Block

So basic nobody ever published it with a name.

Also Four Patches in a Nine Patch

but only four to a block.

Again, no number

Alternating blocks

Nine Patches in a Nine Patch

BlockBase #1606a

Marie Webster called this Double Nine Patch in 1915 and

we'd probably call it that today.

Above and Below

BlockBase #1612

The pattern was published as Building Blocks

in the Household Magazine in 1929

You could also put another nine-patch in the center.

This design has no BlockBase number but it should be 1612.5.

Some of the most basic patchwork designs.