Skyline ~ A Sampler Quilt in Progress

I grew up in Shanghai, (now) the most populous city in the world, so I've always been a city girl at heart. Even though I live in the suburbs right now, my heart always beats a little faster whenever I see pictures of a skyline. It's been on my mind to make a skyline quilt, but I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do until I saw pictures of the Art Gallery Fabrics booth at QuiltCon 2017. AGF built a cardboard backdrop inspired by the Miami skyline, and when I saw it, I knew then that I wanted to do something like that in quilt form.

I wanted to make my quilt in the style of a sampler quilt, with each building being built with different types of blocks. I'm not into anything too complicated, so all of the buildings are made of basic blocks.

First I designed a rough version in EQ7:

Using EQ7 helps me visualize proportions and also play with color a bit, so that I have a general idea of how my color scheme will work out.

Well, I think my finished buildings look pretty close to the version I envisioned:

I can tell already that this quilt will be a blast to quilt!

Introducing Dynamic Patterns!

I just added a Patterns page to my blog, because I finally wrote some patterns! But instead of the normal patterns, I decided to do something fun called dynamic patterns.

What are dynamic patterns? They are patterns generated on the fly based on a few preferences, just for you. That means you can customize the size, colors, and complexity (usually) and get something wholly unique! The idea came about a few months ago when I wrote a half-square triangle generator and I was having so much fun just trying different color combinations and generating patterns. I then decided to actually make a quilt, Haphazard, using that generator. But I thought, there should be a way for me to put this generator on my blog so other people can play with it too.

So here it is ... bright and shiny on the Patterns page, my collection of dynamic patterns. (Alright, I only have 2 at the moment, but I've already got some ideas for new ones to add in the future!)

Each pattern comes with some options, such as picking your colors and the size of your blocks. Then, a pattern will be generated for you, and you can keep generating until you find one you like, and then you can save it.

So, I hope you will go play with it! If you make something using them, I'd love to see it!

Playing with Processing

March = flu season. A house full of sick children & sick adults = less time in the basement (quilting room), and more time on watch duty. But even if I can't quilt, I can play with quilting ideas ... digitally.

Awhile ago, I saw a couple of patterns by Libs Elliott called Just Like Heaven and Rebel Quilt that shared something interesting: they were both incredibly striking, and both were designed using a language called Processing. It's described as a programming language for artists. It sounded interesting so I decided to explore more.

After playing with it a bit, I saw its potential for improv-style experimentation. While I would choose EQ7 or plain pencil / paper for slightly more structured and traditional designs, Processing offered a super quick way for the computer to randomly generate designs for improv style quilts.

The fabric bundle / color palette I'm using is Creative Rockstar from Rad and Happy by Riley Blake, which is just crying out to be made into a quilt with geometric motifs. I wrote up my little quilt generator and set out to make some random HST designs. The powerful part of this program is the ability to tweak different parameters for a new look immediately. First, I experimented with having a roughly equal number of 1-patch HST blocks and 4-patch HST blocks.

Then, I decided to try a ratio of 65% 1-patch HSTs and 35% 4-patch HSTs.

I reversed the ratio and tried 35% 1-patch HSTs and 65% 4-patch HSTs.

I can tell right away that I prefer the look of more 1-patch HSTs and less 4-patch HSTs. (Plus that's less piecing to do.) However, I'm still not sure what to go for exactly. It can become addictive to keep generating new layouts, and though I find ones I like a lot, it's hard to know when to stop, for fear I'd miss out on some genius random layout!

Besides ratio of 1-patch and 4-patch HSTs, other things I can quickly experiment with include distribution of colors (for example, if I want more of one color than another), and whether the colors should be randomly scattered, or more clustered together. I'll be playing with it still, and the quilt I end up making may look nothing like what's above.

I'm really, really excited to have discovered this new tool for design! I can just imagine what it might be able to do for me. (The version of Processing I'm using is p5js, which is in javascript.)

Electric Quilt Time!

It's on my New Year's resolutions to learn EQ7, but I kept putting it off. It's just not as much fun as, say, machine quilting, or even piecing, you know?

I bought EQ last year after hesitating for months, because I heard there was a significant learning curve. When I finally started trying to use it, I saw what people meant. I suppose this software is so powerful that it's impossible to also be intuitive.

Since then, I've played with it off and on, and I think I finally figured out enough to get some use out of it. My favorite part of EQ is the ability to visualize how my quilt will look with my own fabrics, and being able to change the colors quickly and easily. I've realized that color is what I struggle most with when it comes to quilt making, so being able to visualize it when planning a quilt ... priceless!

Anyway, here are some quilts I was playing with, just for fun.

Greek Cross

I'm quite fascinated by how some of the traditional blocks, when set without sashing, create secondary designs. The Greek Cross block is one such block.

Citrus Peel

This design is actually from Jeni Baker's Patchwork Essentials, but I had a jelly roll of yellows and pinks, and I wanted to see if it will work. I think it'll work beautifully!

Modern Log Cabin

What would a log cabin with an alternating color layout look like, but with one square colored entirely differently? Now I know.

I've figured out enough of the software that I'm starting to be excited about it. Next, I'll play around with some other layouts, and hopefully move into non-traditional layouts!