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!

Haphazard

Haphazard is a quilt made of half-square triangles laid out randomly, and the fun part of this quilt is that the layout was completely computer generated! I wrote about this process here. After trying tons of parameters and cycling through many variations, I finally just picked one.

The fabric bundle I used is Creative Rockstar by Rad and Happy for Riley Blake Designs. (It was just begging to be made into a quilt with lots of half-square triangles!) I generated the cutting list with the program, so it was easy to just start cutting and piecing. I didn't end up following the pattern to the T, because that would be too much work, and the idea was that it was random. I followed it pretty closely, though, to achieve a similar effect.

I quilted some dot-to-dot designs in the printed fabrics, like starbursts and flowers and such. I love those! They're so fun, and require no marking. (I'm an anti-marker.) But then I thought ... I really needed a feather! So I started throwing in feathers occasionally ... and they are some of my favorite foreground blocks. What can I say ... feathers are always a blast to quilt. In the background space, since it's all white, it's definitely asking for echoes and some really dense fillers.

But a few blocks in, I realized the background was kind of boring. I wasn't particularly happy with it. All the designs look nicely executed, but the overall composition was lacking. So ... I added some straight lines to some of the background sections, and then I was really happy with it!

I used a solid for the back again, and in a quilt like this, the back actually shows quilting even better than the front! I also love the black/white striped binding.

Making this quilt was mostly about the concept (randomly generated) and letting go of control (a little), and to that end, it turned out well!

But wait ... there's more! I had so much fun generating patterns that I had to write a pattern generator for this quilt. you'll find it here. Pick your own colors and generate a random half-square triangle quilt pattern just for you!

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Link parties joined: Crazy Mom Quilts, My Quilt Infatuation, Busy Hands Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, and Cooking Up Quilts.

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.)