Geeky, Quilty, Love…

So, I finally finished my nee favorite quilt. It started as a whim, but has turned into a beloved family quilt. It also serves as a fabulous example of the architecture of a quilt, the way a simple, unassuming sketch is transformed into something fabulous. In short, I love the way this:

thomas-knauer-sews-pi-sketch

Turns into this:

thomas-knauer-sews-pi-quilt-final

I’ve talked about this quilt a bit before, giving a sneak peek of Bee and Babbit on the top, but now that it is done I am especially happy with it. This was my first go at using the embroidery powers of my new Janome to quilt a quilt. It actually worked a dream.

After designing the quilting motif:

thomas-knauer-sews-pi-4

It was just a matter of marking out a grid on the quilt top for centering each area in the embroidery hoop and then letting rip with some mighty quilting action.

thomas-knauer-sews-pi-quilt-marks

The motif was designed to overlap in every direction so it produced all-over quilting that feels kind of like a stipple, but is actually nine entwined digits of pi. Yep, that’s some geeky, quilty love…

thomas-knauer-sews-pi-quilt-detail

So, there it is: the Pi Quilt. It has become our indispensable play mat, along with being one of my personal favorites. It still amazes me how that dull sketch became something so wonderful; thank goodness for color (especially awkward colors), pattern, texture, and contrast. I really do love building quilts up from the ground up, pushing them to their limits even though all I am working from is the roughest of schematics.

At first I thought of quilting as design, then sculpture, but now I have really settled in on architecture, though that may be heavily influenced by my experiences with architecture at Cranbrook; those cats were just about the only ones making sculpture back in those days…

Anyway, Bee is planning to teach Babbit his numbers, and I am looking forward to sharing the wonders of pi with Bee. Yay geeks!!!

-t

This entry was posted in general. Bookmark the permalink.

4 Responses to Geeky, Quilty, Love…

Leave a Reply to Konda Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *