Jack's Chain – OccasionalPiece

We recently took a small road trip up to see the Bristlecone Pines in the White Mountains. Pine trees = Christmas, right? And while we were up there at 10,000 feet at the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest Visitor Center at Schulman Grove, we took some pictures with those old pines of my latest Christmas quilt, Jingle Bells.

The song “Jingle Bells” is actually a Thanksgiving song, what with the sleigh and all that, and since these circles make me think of those jingley bells — not during November — but in December, that became its name.

However, that’s not the name of the block. Jack’s Chain is the name it’s most commonly known by. The earliest mention of this block is around 1939 and it’s called Rosalia Flower Garden, but the name Jack’s Chain comes into play in 1978. For not knowing about this, all of a sudden the name Jack’s Chain was everywhere. I ordered another early quilt book and it’s in there, too. It’s in Brackman. In fact, for being such a well-recognized pattern, the origins seem to be shrouded in mystery. To see how the current version relates to the old one, take a look at this video:

After the Jack’s Chain is exploded, with the rings set beside each other, it morphs into another well-known, more contemporary version of this block (center construction shown below).

My good friend Dot sent me this photo of her Jack’s chain from 1999. She writes: “The quilt was made for a 1999 South Bay Quilters Guild challenge: to make a quilt using the guild’s logo, which is the traditional Mayflower Block. It’s not that exciting a block, so I found a fun way to set it. I drafted my own pattern from a little sketch in a quilt-block book.” [corrected 10/23/22]

The backing, and fussy-cut centers of the circles were cut from this Jane Sassaman fabric.

Yes, I really liked those old Bristlecone Pines, and liked the fact that we were walking around among these giants, both in age, wisdom, adaptability and scarcity. If you watched the Highlight reel (above), some of the wood looks fluid, as if it were poured into place. A good lesson for me, for this quilt has been a struggle.

After I put up this earlier post on Instagram, and then wrote about it on this blog, I was blasted by those who police the Other Well-known Name of this design. The origins, of course, were Jack’s Chain, but morphed. That morphing was lovely and allows the viewer to see giant circles, a secondary pattern. After I was castigated for calling it Jack’s Chain (seven pages worth!), I started doing research and found multiple places where this pattern resides. One of the places even offers acrylic templates for sale (do your own search, if you are interested). There are two basic sizes, 3″ nine-patch blocks, and 6″ nine-patch blocks. Sometimes there are diamonds in the center, and sometimes not. Sometimes the center is done with English Paper Piecing, then the nine-patches added on via machine. Sometimes the version is a table-runner (and there is a YouTube video for that one). There are as many variations of this block as there are blocks in this quilt; something for everyone — plenty to share. There is however, only one “official” pattern of that contemporary version smaller nine-patch, so if you want the complete how-to, it’s best to make sure your nickels and dimes get to her.

I originally obtained my pattern from a very fine and brilliant quilter, who no longer sells her pattern online. So when it came time to figure out how to put the sides on the center, I was stuck. So I drafted my own. The quilting on this quilt was done by Jen of Sew-Mazing Quilting.

In the Quilt Index, this is Quilt #270 and my second Christmas quilt finish for 2022 (the first). As the label notes, it’s 66″ wide and 78″ tall.

At the midpoint of this quilt, after being harangued and scolded, I wanted to wad it all up and throw it away. Our quilts often carry our hopes, dreams and emotions and I felt like this quilt had been dumped on. Maybe it was just me. Could be. I always consider my own foibles first, but in the end? I kept going. And now that I’ve taken it to 10,000 feet and let those Bristlecone Pines shed their magic on it, it’s a keeper.

Be as kind as you can, in all the ways that you can–

We also headed up Bishop Creek to get these shots, as we don’t really have many pines around here:

If you go to Bishop, I can recommend Great Basin Bakery for lunch. And breakfast! If you are down in Lone Pine, the Alabama Hills Cafe & Bakery is also really good (named for the hills at the base of Mt. Whitney).

Decided to pick this one up again. I don’t know why my mind will flit to an once-begun-left-unfinished quilt, but at least I am well ahead of Christmas.

I chose the red Sassaman print for the centers, and for the background, I knew I wanted to use the white-with-gold Heavy Metal fabric, so last time I was rummaging around in ETSY, I purchased a bit extra (it has disappeared from the marketplace).

My first block. The center was a challenge, so I kept trying. I had another reject, but then figured out three more that would work.

It’s a dot-to-dot sort of construction among the angles.

I press toward the colorful fabrics.

This photo is before I stitched in the white triangles in between everything.

In chatting on IG with Marla (@mingamonga on Instagram), she alerted me to the other name of this block.

(credits are at end of blog; both of these are called Jack’s Chain)

I went over to the Quilt Index, and these were the two earliest quilts listed under Jack’s Chain. This block, shown below, had a Barbara Brackman number of 430, and was first published in late 1939 as Rosalia Flower Garden.

It’s drawn a bit wonky; the center is a true hexagon. But in the newest variation, the rings are pulled apart, set next to each other. That’s what allows that secondary pattern to emerge that we all love.

I did put this up on Instagram today (sorry for the redundancy) but still continue my plea for quilters to acknowledge the deep heritage they have from other quilters. I love stories where “old” blocks are given new life, but let’s not make their works anonymous.

After figuring this all out, my husband Dave took me down to the Beignet Spot, where we shared some small beignets and a Cajun Chicken sandwich. I like those kind of dinners. The temperatures are supposed to soar up into the 100+ next week, so since it was a mild evening, we opened all the windows to enjoy the fresh air. Then we promptly closed them again: smoke from a nearby fire was wafting into the house. One.More.Month. Hopefully by the end of September, we’ll be through the worst of it.

I can recommend this Cold Soup with Noodles & Tomatoes for supper, if you are having the same issues. We used somen noodles and added some poached shrimp. It was also great as leftovers.

And now for a giant leap from Jack’s Chain to AI, aka Artificial Intelligence:

I’ve become most interested in the part of AI that is text-to-image.

DALLE-E was the first one I’d read about, and I think it is one of the original AI text-to-image generators. The operator would type in something like “Teddy bears working on new AI research underwater with 1990s technology” and a the computer would scan gazillions of images, and generate a new image, using the parameters given:

It can generate different types of styles, and while I don’t know where this will eventually lead, neither did I understand where the iPod would go, or how it would be combined with the portable telephone. And so, ever since I read about the ability of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to be used with images, I’ve kind of kept my antenna up when I scroll Instagram. I’m going to throw in a bunch of links here, and just briefly mention some places where you might want to explore, then head back to quilting.

Andrew Kudless (@matstydesign) has some explorations in this text-to-image process, and this post and this post have quite the discussion. MidJourney is an AI Art Generator, and you can read more about it here. The Instagram hashtag #midjourney is also interesting, but I find that the heavy dependence on dystopian, creepy, and frankly evil-looking images get in my way. (Maybe that is the true hidden character of computers? Just Kidding.) If you have access to this software, and make something cool with this new medium, send me an image.

But mostly I’m interested in thinking about how quilters might use AI with say nine-patch blocks, or Jack’s Chain, given that AI imagery can think up this for a house:

But maybe it’s not possible to break out of our grid. Maybe we as quilters are doomed to forever lifting patterns from those who have gone before, or subject the people in our IG feed to endless demonstrations of our improv or block-making techniques. [I could apologize, but it’s probably not going to stop.] However fascinating the exploration of improv, or AI, or geometric iterations may be to us, maybe we have to acknowledge that there might be an end point, although I won’t venture to say where that is. In looking at bunches of AI images for this post, I found they can sort of run together in concept, even if they are somewhat singular in design.

I’ve seen some pushing outward, some new quilting ideas, like we are all taking baby steps towards a new language of our own making. But we aren’t there, at least not yet. But it is this sort of challenge: beginning with hundreds of blocks, a full range of values and colors, and multiples of shapes, all being input into our brains as we try to become our own AI machines, combining and recombining. We are forever hoping from this process that a new quilt idea will burble up from the primordial ooze* of our sewing studios/rooms/spaces, and emerge into a full-blown fabulous new quilt. Aren’t we?

This is definitely my sewing space. from here

Or maybe your sewing room looks more like this? From here

No answers from me about this. I imagine us exploring together, pushing outward here, and combining it with a new technique there and using yet-undiscovered tools to create new quilts. Maybe it’s all a bit too Brave New World-ish for you. Maybe for me, too. I love the grid, and I love standing on the shoulders of the women who have come before. I just don’t want to let them down, nor rob our evolving quilt world of potential new and exciting iterations.