We just think we have new ideas...

When we visited Greece a couple of years ago we saw a 13th century Byzantine church in Pyrgi on the island of Chios.  The guide explained that while churches were not permitted to be decorated outside, the builders couldn't stand to just make plain old masonry.  Instead, they separated the courses of large, light-colored stones with smaller "plinths" of red brick.  It's called cloisonne masonry, for the jewelry style in which metal compartments are filled with different colors of enamel, leaving the little compartment walls visible as borders around the colors.

I thought the design looked exactly like the quilts in my Crazed series, which I swear had begun long before I saw the church!

Crazed 3: Red Tide (detail)

Crazed 1: Tricolor (detail)