Taunton's Threads - For people who love to sew
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From the pages of Threads Magazine Symmetry for Quilters Use the simplest principles of symmetry to transform a single motif into endless quilting and appliqué designs
But whether you're taken with a single motif or happy to be working with whatever shapes your current quilt requires, it can be illuminating to discover that there's a distinct, natural logic governing the most common ways shapes can be combined into repeating patterns. Traditional quilting designs and blocks almost all rely on this logic, as do repeated patterns from every culture and period of history. And if you're designing your own quilts, this discovery can provide an invaluable, and virtually inexhaustible, inspiration for your own creative explorations. As soon as you start arranging two or more duplicates of a single shape on a flat surface, you're creating a pattern with them. And if your shapes are placed in some kind of repeating order, you're operating within one or more well-defined types of symmetry. Mathematicians have described a multitude of ways that shapes can be arranged symmetrically on a flat surface, but essentially they all come down to four basic, familiar operations, officially termed translation, rotation, reflection, and glide reflection (see Four types of symmetry). I must confess to being one of those quilters taken with a certain motif, in my case the ginkgo leaf, which is used in one way or another in all my examples. Besides having a lovely contour to look at, most ginkgo leaves are asymmetrical and thus clearly reveal how the four basic symmetry operations work. I suggest you start with asymmetrical shapes for your own explorations for this reason. Of course, the point of learning about the symmetry operations isn't that they provide rules to follow. It's primarily to make sure you don't overlook any possibilities. By all means, mix, combine, divide, stretch, and recombine any ideas the examples here suggest. I hope they prove as provocative as starting points for your quilts as they've been for mine. Tools for shape play To make effective symmetrical patterns, you need to have plenty of duplicates (eight to ten) of the motif to play with. Photocopying, tracing, and drawing around templates are all good strategies for making precise duplicates. But in the early stages of your explorations of a shape, you usually don't need exact duplicates; I often begin with cut-out paper shapes. I'll simply draw or trace my motif onto newsprint that I've folded into four or eight layers and cut out all the duplicates at once, rather like disconnected paper dolls. In addition to newsprint, gather a good supply of large-sized drawing paper (for backgrounds), lightweight tracing paper to record and repeat both the outline and the position of the shape, and heavyweight tracing paper for the final layout. Add rulers for drawing grid lines to help with positioning and determining spacing, compasses for laying out and dividing circles, markers for quick color studies, and glue stick or double-stick transparent tape for holding shapes in place, and you'll be ready to start making designs. Here's what I do: I place the shapes on a large sheet of drawing paper and begin to position them using different symmetry operations (for more design ideas, see Figure and ground). When I find one I like, I tape or glue the shapes in place and tape a piece of heavyweight tracing paper over the entire layout. Then I use a template to make precision tracings of each repeat. Free-motion freedom You can, of course, use the designs you generate as patchwork templates, appliqué patterns, quilting designs, and anything else that comes to mind. But I urge you to forget as much as possible that you're designing for any particular quilting technique, so you don't allow worries about how you might actually sew a design in fabric to limit where the process can take you. A powerful design may actually lead you to explore new techniques, simply because you don't want to leave that design behind. In the quilts shown in this article, I've used an appliqué technique that's easy to prepare for, and provides great freedom to design with all manner of complex and irregular shapes: free-motion stitching to outline, embellish, and finish raw-edged shapes that are cut without seam allowances. Each shape is attached with fusible web (I use Pellon Wonder-Under), which also prevents raveling. You can stitch through just your top, or through batting layers as well, but if the top isn't stiff (as was the raw linen I used with the quilts shown here), you'll want to back it with one of the many temporary stabilizers on the market, such as a tear-away or wash-away, or a permanent lightweight iron-on interfacing. Freezer paper works well also. I like to prepare for free-motion appliqué by both sketching out possible paths I might follow and warming up with practice stitching on scraps. For the sketch, I lay tracing paper over the actual appliqué that's fused in place to a background. I then draw around it in one continuous line with a pencil, without lifting the lead from the paper, just as the needle will operate. I'll repeat this exercise a few times, making these thumbnail sketches until I've got a clear idea of how I want the final stitching to look, keeping in mind that I won't be able to reproduce the drawing exactly. Quilters, get ready to stitch
Your stitch length is determined by how fast you move the fabric as well as how heavy your foot is on the pedal. You'll make short stitches by moving the fabric slowly or pressing the pedal to the floor. If you move the fabric fast, your stitches will be longer. You can achieve a uniform stitch length around both simple and complex shapes by taking some time to get used to this method. The results you get will be well worth the practice time. Further reading
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