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Quilt Notes:
Jinny Beyer's QUILTER'S ALBUM OF PATCHWORK PATTERNS (p.109.2) has three variations on the classic CHINESE PUZZLE. The most beautiful is probably this rather exotic variation, published by Nancy Page (aka Florence LaGanke) in the Hartford Courant, October 31, 1938 (see illustrated left). The earliest version, debuted in print in 1931/32 in "Grandmother Clark's Authentic, Early American Quilts." it allows for much variation in the colors, more like a mosaic (as illustrated above), with lots of nuance possible.
As mentioned elsewhere at this site, "puzzle" in quilt naming simply means "pieced" like a jigsaw puzzle, rather than appliqued, but here the connection to things Chinese, could refer to those beautiful parquet wood boxes constructed with inlays from different species of wood and imported from the Orient. In fact, see the unexpected tiling below for this pattern, with beautiful, rectangular, diagonal box shapes! Also Beyer's color illustration definitely seems to imitate a parquet effect.
As regards the piecing, the layout may seem unusually complicated at first, until you realize that CHINESE PUZZLE is actually a two-patch block (see illustration left and piecing animation), where the two patches together are flipped top to bottom and then right to left, in order to form a second column for the block. Odd colors or random scraps can also be inserted so that the repeat is not too tedious (see illustrations above).
For more exotic or world travel titles, see:
WORLD'S FAIR
TOWERS OF CAMELOT
ROAD TO OZ
WONDER OF EGYPT
ORANGE PEKOE
CATALPA FLOWER
ALPINE CROSS
CHINESE GONGS
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CHINESE PUZZLE
