Quilt Notes: TUMBLERS was offered by Nancy Cabot (Loretta Leitner Rising) in her column in the Chicago Daily Tribune, February 25, 1938, where she locates its first appearance in quiltdom in New Hampshire, 1848. As an all-over tessellation, it can repeat the same tumbler shape, Escher-like, positive and negative, throughout the coverlet.

The version upper right (grid= 9 x 9, as a one or two patch design) was illustrated in the QUILTING AND PATCHWORK DICTIONARY by Rhoda Ochser Goldberg, 1988. Jinny Beyer includes the block (also called THE TUMBLER) as a one patch design, pieced with scraps throughout, and dated back to the Ladies Art Company Catalog, #368, published in the late 19th century.

For more "kitchen" quilt blocks, see SALAD BOWL, TEA LEAF and KITCHEN WOOD BOX. For a gorgeous (and a lot more complicated) tessellation of this type, see Maggie Malone's wonderfully humorous version of PUDDING AND PIE. Also some great books on the topic are available: Jinny Beyer's DESIGNING TESSELLATIONS, and Christine Porter's TESSELLATION QUILTS.