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Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Planning

I'm planning a new quilt for the Neighbourhood House. This one will be a raffle quilt--so a fundraiser as well as a chance to promote quilting within our community. This interlocking stars pattern was suggested:It's based on a Friendship Star, but instead of just one set of stars there are two. A pattern of interacting Friendship Stars sounds like a great metaphor for a Neighbourhood House. Plus it's a simple enough design that relatively new quilters could be involved.

My first dilemma: the most efficient way to piece this design would be to work in rows: each row alternates a plain square unit and a unit made up of two triangles. On the other hand, Neighbourhood House is all about participation. Piecing the quilt in blocks--each made up of one Friendship Star--would be more inclusive and would give more people a sense of ownership of the project. Since the stars interlock, though, there'll be an odd row between each clear star block and only half the stars can be pieced as blocks. Oh well, I think it's still worth going with participation and ownership over efficiency.

You can see that my drafting is still done with paper and pencil. I've played with the idea of getting one of the software packages, but I haven't bitten that particular bullet yet. Sketching designs out by hand is time consuming, but it's a way of getting familiar with the pattern and anticipating the piecing process. I find it relaxing and absorbing. I don't know if that would be the case working on my computer--then again, I'm enjoying blogging well enough.

1 comment:

Dee said...

Hmm I see the dilemma between interacting stars and interacting folks working on the quilt. more space between the stars would help with more folks each making a block, but lose the interaction between the stars. how are you going to solve it?