Block o Month/Yankee Puzzle

Block of the Month

Previous Block of the Month: "Y" is for Yankee Puzzle

BLOCK SIZE: 4" square

Join four hour-glass units to make the Four-Patch Yankee Puzzle block. Although the design is composed of just one pattern piece, you won't even need a template to make the block.

Yankee Puzzle is one of the four-patch puzzle blocks identified in Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women Who Made Them. According to the author, "there are almost as many 'puzzle' patterns as there are 'stars'."

The term Yankee is a nickname that has evolved to refer to an ever-widening group of people. It is believed to have been used by Dutch settlers in New York to describe an inhabitant of New England in colonial times. During the Civil War, the term was used for an inhabitant of one of the northern or Union states. Today, it is used for an inhabitant of the United States.

The block was also published under other names. The Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns indicates that several periodicals published by the Kansas City Star referred to the block as Hour Glass (1932), Envelope Quilt (1942) and The Whirling Blade (1944). Other popular pattern sources named the block as Big Dipper (Ladies Art Company) and Bow Ties ("Nancy Cabot"). "Evangeline's," a 1930s pattern column in the St. John, New Brunswick, Maritime Farmer, called the design Pork and Beans.

Each block requires two 3 1/4" squares of light fabric and two of dark. However, by cutting the two dark squares from different fabrics and then combining them in the hourglass units, you can emphasize the pinwheel formed at the block center.

The diagonal lines in the block give it direction and a lively feel. When joined side by side in a straight-set, the block is lost. You may find that sashing strips will help to quiet the design and retain a block focus. Have fun exploring the effects of color when you dig into your fabric scraps to find likely combinations for this easy-to-piece block.

CUTTING

Cut 2: 3 1/4" squares, light
Cut 2: 3 1/4" squares, dark

DIRECTIONS

Draw diagonal lines from corner to corner on the wrong side of each light square.
Place a marked square on a dark square, right sides together. Stitch 1/4" away from both sides of one diagonal line. Make 2. Cut only on the marked line between the stitching lines. Open the units and press the seam allowances toward the dark fabric, forming pieced squares.
Place two pieced squares, right sides together, butting the seams and placing dark triangles against light ones. Extend the marked line to the corner of the dark triangle.
Stitch 1/4" away from both sides of the marked line, as before. Cut on the marked line.
Open the unit and press the seam allowance in either direction to make an hour-glass unit. Make 4.
Lay out the units. Stitch the units into pairs and join the pairs to complete the block.

There are no full-size pattern pieces for Yankee Puzzle.

This block was one of the 26 featured in Lively Little Quilt Blocks: 26 Step-by-Step Patterns and a "Mini Quilt Blocks A to Z" series that ran in Issue 17-42 of Miniature Quilts magazine.

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