Squared Spirals

Not too long ago, I happened across a page showing knitted projects that illustrated math concepts. One of the knits looked like it could easily be made into a quilt using half-square triangles, though at this moment I can’t find that exact project on the site. Since I happened to be between immediate quilting projects at that moment, I drafted the idea into EQ7 and played with colors. Naturally, making a new quilt from stash is ideal, and so that’s what I did. I love the way the HSTs give the impression of spirals — pointed ones — going around “poles”! Just squint a little, if you don’t see the effect right away. 😉

When it came time to begin quilting the finished top, I did softly curved horizontal lines in the white to make it recede into the background. I left the red unquilted so it would pop out a bit, and I just echoed a few times inside the almost-black shapes to give them a bit more motion. Luckily for me, my new Bernina ruler foot (#72 for domestic machines) arrived just as I was ready to do those straight lines in the black. Great timing! (And I love the foot, too!) As a contrast to all of the straight — or almost-straight — lines in the central quilt, I did curves, with more rulers, in the borders and added pearls and small groups of feathers.

I love the way the texture shows up on the back of the quilt, too. By the way, I used 1″ finished squares to make the top. It measures about 12.5″ x 15.5″ — which made it that much easier to make from stash fabrics!