I'm going to try combining these two units (patches) to make four-patch blocks. Then I'll try using the blocks to design quilt tops. Wish me luck. Lots of room here for some fancy quilting.
Look What Linda Did Back on 28 March 2012 I played with a Shoo Fly block. I cut several Shoo Fly blocks into quarters. I mixed up the quarters and joined them together to make new blocks. Using my design Linda sewed the scrappy quilt you see above. What I really like is how she quilted it. It gives the impression that the quilt is made of diagonal strips rather than being sewn together from squares. The tight quilting gives elegance to an otherwise simple quilt.
I am going to try designing with these two simple units. What if I combine the two units to make this four patch block? What if I combine the two units to make this four patch block?
What If I Mix Up Two Blocks? Shoo Fly Friendship Star What if I make a Shoo Fly block and a Friendship Star block, cut them both into four pieces and then mix the pieces up? The result would be a new block. Actually, a bunch of new blocks. Here are some quilt designs using those blocks: You probably noticed I also played with how the blocks are colored. I'm sure there are more possibilities. But these will do for now.
Antique Tile Antique Tile is a tradional block that is made from 9 square patches. So it is a nine-patch bloc...
I am going to try designing with these two simple units. What if I combine the two units to make this four patch block? What if I combine the two units to make this four patch block?
Snail's Trail Log Cabin Snail's Trail and Log Cabin are two blocks that are made in a similar way. You start at the center and work your way out. I wondered, what if these two blocks were paired up? So I set out to find out. What if I join a Snail's Trail and a Log Cabin block to make a unit? Then what if I make a second unit, rotate it, and join it to the first to make a large block? What if I repeat this large block to make a quilt? What if I invert the colors that I used in my first attempt by replacing them with complementary colors? What if I make a large block the same way I did in my first attempt, by try different colors? What if in the first row I mirror-image the large blocks from side to side? What if I repeat the first row in the remaining rows? What if I use the first row from the last attempt but I change the background colors to black And grey? What if, instead of repeating the rows, each row is the mirror-image of the previous one? What if I make a unit and a mirror-image unit and join them to make a large block? What if I repeat the large blocks to make a row? What if each succeeding row faces the opposite direction? What if I use the large block from the last attempt and color it differently? What if I orient it horizontally then flip each block in a row 180 degrees? What if each row is the mirror-image of the preceding one? What if I place four units around a center square to make a large block? What if I then repeat that block to make a quilt? I like the way these two traditional blocks look together. I expect that they could be used in some very interesting ways that I haven't even thought of. Perhaps you can think of some.
You Can Make Quarter-Of-Nine Block Quilts Starting With Spool Blocks
Campsie Campsie is one of my earlier quilts. Back then I thought a block was a block. That what you saw was what...
Nine Patch & Drunkard's Path This quilt top (8 December 2010) needs quilting. What if I start in the center with a semi-circular pinwheel? It's too big; it's not to scale. What if I mimic the Nine Patch blocks using a black thread ? It covers the territory but it detracts from the main design. What if I use a light green thread instead of black? This is better but it's not complete. What if I try a spray of green rays from the corners of the black Drunkard's Path blocks? I like the rays; but there is too much Nine Patch mimicry. What if I remove everything except the Nine Patch mimicry in the Nine Patch blocks and the rays in the black Drunkard's Path blocks? This is good. I need to fill in the blank spaces, but I need to do it subtly. What if I fill the white squares with white on white Nine Patch mimicry? What if I inline the white quarter circles with white? What if I inline the green shapes in the Drunkard's Path blocks with green? I like how this looks. Quilting can greatly affect the appearance of a quilt. To see other quilts and how quilting affects them, go to My Posts by Subject in the sidebar on the right and click on Quilting.
I am going to try designing with these two simple units. What if I combine the two units to make this four patch block? What if I combine the two units to make this four patch block?
What Happens When You Offset Balkan Puzzle Blocks? I am enjoying winter and if it wants to hang around, that's fine by me. But for some reason, when I look at a Balkan Puzzle block colored like this I think of flowers and I want to plant a garden. The Balkan Puzzle flowers could be lined up in neat rows and columns. This is static and conventional. Although, I do like the pinwheels that are formed as secondary patterns. What if the Balkan Puzzle blocks are offset slightly? This has more movement and is quite playful. The negative shapes create added interest. What if the blocks are offset a little more? This has lost some of its movement and the negative shapes, between the flowers, are now diamonds. This is more airy and there is lots of space to do interesting quilting. What if the blocks are offset even more? This has even more room for elaborate quilting and the negative shapes between the flowers are more interesting again. When the blocks are offset so that only their corners touch, the result is a checkerboard of flowers. The design has again become static and conventional. But there is some nice space for some decorative quilting. Up to this point all the designs have been grid based. What if there is no grid? Then designs like this circle, or wreath, are possible. And the door is opened to a wide variety of exciting designs.
Snail's Trail Log Cabin Snail's Trail and Log Cabin are two blocks that are made in a similar way. You start at the c...
Nine Patch Place Mat Version 6 I decided to try a geometric design on this place mat. No leaves or flowers; just geometric patterns. These are the three elements that make up the design. The first o
St Thomas My Ontario Series of quilt designs use what I consider to be non-traditional blocks. St Thomas is no ...
Toronto I wanted to design some blocks that featured some triangles that weren't half-square triangles. I decid...
What Happens When You Offset Shoo Fly Blocks? Part 3 Take a simple blocks like Shoo Fly and, instead of lining it up in rows and columns, offset it. Suddenly wonderful things start to happen.
Kimberley The last two days I showed you quilt designs based on four patch blocks that I'd designed. I am going to do that again today. Today's block is called Kimberley. (By the way I've been naming these four patch blocks after places in British Columbia.) Four patch blocks are designed on a 4x4 grid. These four squares are used to create the four patch design. Both the original Kimberley block and its mirror image are used to make the quilt. What if the Kimberley block is colored differently? And what if it is simply repeated? I am sure that nobody is surprised to find that the resulting quilt looks very different too.
Nine Patch Place Mat Version 2 Yesterday I designed this quilting for a place mat made using six Nine Patch blocks. Today I designed this quilting. In both versions the quilting is meant to be done using thread that contrasts with the background. Yesterday the design used a flattened semicircle that was repeated over and over. Today I simply replaced the semicircle with a simple loop. The quilting proceeds as follows: Once you get the hang of quilting a free-motion loop the quilting is really quite simple. But the result doesn't look it.
I designed this simple block and I want to see what can be done with it. By combining four of my block I can make this larger block. Now the question is what can I do with this?
St Thomas My Ontario Series of quilt designs use what I consider to be non-traditional blocks. St Thomas is no ...
Nine Patch This is obviously a Nine Patch block. I've placed it in the middle of a grid. What if I try filling the empty grid squares around the Nine Patch block in many various ways? The best way to find out is to try it. Is this an easy way to design new blocks,or what?
Clay's Choice If you're looking for design inspiration, you might want to try starting with a traditional block and scrambling the units to make new blocks. Clay's Choice is a traditional block that is constructed from eight units. What if I play with how those units are arranged and colored? When you scramble blocks and make new ones, you can create any look you like, from modern to traditional and everything in between.
I'm going to try combining these two units (patches) to make four-patch blocks. Then I'll try using the blocks to design quilt tops. Wish me luck. Lots of room here for some fancy quilting.
What If I Mix Up Two Blocks? Shoo Fly Friendship Star What if I make a Shoo Fly block and a Friendship Star block, cut them both into four pieces and then mix the pieces up? The result would be a new block. Actually, a bunch of new blocks. Here are some quilt designs using those blocks: You probably noticed I also played with how the blocks are colored. I'm sure there are more possibilities. But these will do for now.
Balkan Puzzle Its fun to take traditional blocks and use them as the inspiration for new blocks. I make what I call ...
What If Two Blocks Became Two Different Blocks? Jacob's Ladder Ohio Star What if you take two blocks. Cut them into 4 quarters each. Take 2 quarters from each block and sew them together to make a new block. What do you get? We're about to find out as I'm going to do that very thing with a Jacob's Ladder block and an Ohio Star block. I think this is a great way to come up with new blocks of your own. There are a lot of traditional blocks you might want to try it with.
Kimberley The last two days I showed you quilt designs based on four patch blocks that I'd designed. I am going...
Disappearing Kansas Star In my last post I made new blocks from each of these color versions of Kansas Star by cutting each block into quarters and then reassembling the quarters differently. I then used the new blocks in quilt designs. What if I take two quarters from one block and two quarters from another block and use those to make a new block?
Flying Shuttles & Shoo Fly What if I cut these two blocks into quarters and the use pieces of each to make two new blocks?
Nine Patch Place Mat Version 3 Yesterday's place mat used a simple loop for the quilting. Today's place mat uses a simple loop once again. However, the loop is used two different ways. Sometimes it fo
I designed this 10"x10" block on a 5x5 grid; it is a 5 patch block. Part of the fun part of designing your own block is you get to color it any way you please. The other part is seeing what happens when you do: Of course, you don't have to design your own block. You can always try coloring traditional blocks nontraditional ways. That's fun too.
I'm going to try combining these two units (patches) to make four-patch blocks. Then I'll try using the blocks to design quilt tops. Wish me luck. Lots of room here for some fancy quilting.
When You Offset Blocks You Create Design Opportunities Clay's Choice is a traditional block. It's also a very simple...
Campsie Campsie is one of my earlier quilts. Back then I thought a block was a block. That what you saw was what you got. A block could be colored different ways and the results would all be different but not really different. I thought every block had it's own unique identity. This is the Campsie block as I designed it. If you change the blues to blacks and the yellows to tans and it would still look the same only different. The Campsie block is made of two units that are colored differently. Because the units are colored differently but their structure is the same they look the same only different. I no longer believe that a block necessarily has a fixed identity. I believe that changing the way units are colored and combined can result in very very different looking blocks. The same goes for blocks, they can be colored and combined to produce dramatically different quilts. Here's what happens when I mess with my Campsie block: All of these quilts are made using the same basic unit. But by playing with that unit I can make a number of very different blocks. And those blocks in turn make unique quilts.
Snail's Trail Log Cabin I had fun playing with these two blocks in my last post; so I thought I'd play some more.
What Else Can You Do With A Drunkard's Path Block? There are quite a few quilt designs that are made using just a Drunkard's Path block. But why use just a Drunkard's Path block? Why not combine it with other blocks? What if a Drunkard's Path block is combined with a Shoo Fly block? This is one way of combining 2 of each block. This is another way. What if both these ways are combined? This is the start of an interesting design. When the design is repeated, the result is alternating thick and thin diagonal stripes. What if the thin stripes are colored? This is definitely a useable design. Many more designs can be made using the Drunkard's Path and Shoo Fly blocks. You might want to try discovering some.
Kansas Dugout Kansas Dugout is a nice simple block. I'm going to play with it. First, I'm going to play with how it is colored. Then, instead of placing blocks in tidy rows and columns, I'm going to offset the blocks. As I said, Kansas Dugout is a nice simple block. You can do some interesting things with it. However, if you offset it it, you can do a lot more things that are a lot more interesting.
