Sunday Quilt Inspiration: N U M B E R S

It's ironic that most quilters are artists who love color, texture and fabric, and fear numbers.  Yet, patchwork quilting requires the use of numbers almost as much as those other elements.  Patchwork quilts are made of squares, or blocks, repeated and multiplied by rows and columns.  So quilters, who  generally fear math, must use it to be successful.  I am definitely a member of the "can't handle math" sisterhood.  It's time to appreciate numbers!  Instead of fearing them, we can appreciate the math that allows us to create beautiful works of comfort.

4  Starting easy: 
four patch

9 A plus quilt made from nine patch blocks.

24 A log cabin block with six strings per side, requiring 24 strings per block. These come together surprisingly fast despite all the pieces.

5 Rail fence blocks made with five rails.  Great way to use 2 1/2 inch strips.  Sew, cut, arrange, done! 

9 Soft Irish Chain quilt, made with nine patches paired with white squares to form the chains.  I love the beautiful quilting.  Here's the math: five pairs per row X eleven rows = 55 pairs for a total of 110 blocks.  I can almost guarantee that I'd math something wrong.

16 This one looks difficult, but it's really not.  The 16 square blocks are made from four patches that are arranged with opposing dark and light squares.  The light squares always touch to form an inner square.  Then the big blocks are alternated with medium contrast single blocks. Easy, but dramatic.

8 A pretty pinwheel takes only eight pieces: four half-square triangles arranged to form the pinwheels.  Gotta love that quilting!

1 Last one: a whole cloth quilt that takes only one huge piece of fabric and some talented quilting.  How cool it would be to have the ability to have this level of quilting.

Thanks for visiting.  Feel free to visit my Pinterest "Heart, quilts" board which includes all of these beautiful quilts and about 400 more!  If you'd like to join the fun and pin to this board, just say the word.  I'll gladly add you to the pinners list.

Happy Quilting, 

Mary