Good job, Bear. But the way I see it, the four corners of the top drawing are the corners of the next square. I haven't tried this yet, so I may have a lot to learn.

Yeah, it's Arkansas Crossroads, most commonly. Split 9 patch looks like this:

https://quiltville.com/pdf/Split9Pat...ass_supply.pdf

There are different ways to arrange the basic block, which is the 9 patch block that Dunster posted in post #15.

I was anxious to see the books on the Kansas City Star quilt blocks that were in my Guild's library. I thought it would be the more "common" names of blocks since they were shared all over the country. Much to my surprise, they were renamed by the person who submitted the block. They were obviously not "new" blocks then and they aren't "new" blocks now. So blocks have many many names and each hand seems to call them what they want to call them.

Bear is Gray's method is the one demonstrated in the Chiclet's pattern. I agree it makes the most sense to me, too.

The split 9 patch ("split" meaning only split between light and dark, not actually "cut" in two) is doable, too. But I think I'd have more trouble assembling those 9 patches than Bear's (and Chiclet's) way due to the necessary but odd looking color arrangement it requires.

'can of worms' quilt could be done by making a 16 patch, then the alternate block could be a white square with covered corners on two sides. BUT the original picture and the question looks like the white/tans were pieced as two long strips wof, then cut into '2 patches'. then arranged pleasingly, with 1/2 sq tri at mid points. right? YES, bear is gray. like that.