05 April 2011

Designing new quilt blocks

One of the blogs a follow is Wayne Kollinger's Sketch Book. I find his exploration of what works and what doesn't endlessly fascinating (regardless of whether I always agree with his aesthetics). His most recent post explores the idea of designing a new quilt block by adding to the underlying grid. He took several 3x3 blocks, adding a frame to give a 5x5 design space with the original block at its center.

I thought this looked like a wonderfully fun idea, but decided to work from 4x4 blocks. Here are some of my first results, built around the "Crown of Thorns" block (above right).

I came up with three different new blocks, each of which I quite like:








And here are three quilts with those three blocks:


3 comments:

Wayne Kollinger said...

SaraJoan

I am absolutely delighted to see what you've done with my idea. I hope you do more.

You realize, of course, that your 4x4 grid blocks have a 2x2 grid core, and that it is possible not only to add an outer shell, making a 5x5 grid block, but to change the central core as well. This creates the potential for even more designs.

Keep playing and having fun.

Wayne Kollinger said...

Oops, I should not have said 5x5 grid blocks; I should have said 6x6 grid blocks.

Pardon my mis-mathematics.

Elsie Montgomery said...

Very cool ideas! Makes me wish for longer days and shorter to-do lists!

Elsie
http://elsiequilts.blogspot.com/