Oriental Splendor quilt block

Oriental Splendor

December 18, 1933-Many Paths Quilt Changes Name; Oriental in Tone was the title of Nancy Cabot's column introducing her Oriental Splendor quilt pattern in the Chicago Tribune.

"Strangely enough this pattern, which originated in Connecticut in the earliest days of it's history and which was then called "Many Paths," is now called "Oriental Splendor." Stranger still, it is more oriental than early American in feeling. It is an all over pattern, best executed in two colors," she wrote. This block is modern looking even today.

This block is hexagon shaped and when the hexies are connected, an overall pattern is created. For that reason, I didn't make this block for my sampler quilt.



A two color antique Oriental Splendor quilt, purple and yellow, can be viewed here and a scrappy version can be viewed here.

The block can also be seen in this quilt catalog from 1933 on image 11. You'll need to scroll down the page to find the images.

Oriental Splendor can be found in Electric Quilt's program as #266a though not as a true hexagon block as Nancy showed.

This design is also known as Smoothing Iron. Here's a quilt in progress at Louisa Quilts.

                             

Fons and Porter have a video on making this block so if you have a membership to their website, you can view it.

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