I will be reporting weekly on a new quilt on which I am working. I am in the numbercrunching stage, and hope I will follow this through to a completed project.

• Quiltreport 1 here

March 10 — After musing over the high-res graphic sent to me from Professor F:

I realized we could go a couple of ways (“we?” where did that come from?) After removing the white area and “smooshing” the two blocks of data together, I’d have a slightly rectangular form, adequate for a quilt dimension:

However, as quilts are generally oriented vertically, the chart’s data would be sideways. I didn’t like that. Especially if I decided to embroider any words on the quilt. At this point, my friend Prof. S deemed me as officially “crazy.”

March 11 — Here’s the other way to go:

In this graphic, the data has stayed vertical, true to the chart, but the entire image has been stretched into the proper dimensions* — the data’s proportion to each other stays the same. I showed this to Professor F and he said it was fine and to get the hell out of his office and go do some real work. Just the first part, actually.

*I chose the final quilt dimension to be 60″x80″, a standard size — large enough to be a coverlet on a queen-size bed. I usually make larger quilts, but for the first time in my modest quilting career, I don’t know where — or with whom — the finished piece is going to end up. It’s pretty bright and screamy, so I figured it will be more of an occasional blankie (ergo, smaller) instead of a bedspread (ergo, larger). Make sense? With me so far? Did I use “ergo” correctly?

March 12 — Time for measuring. This is hard for me but probably easy for you mathy types. I got out a pencil and ruler, and, with printout of final graphic in hand, am measuring the pieces. I printed the graphic at 6″x8″, which will make this painless {smirk} since I only have to multiply the measurements by 10 to get my final sizes. Measuring the verticals first. Saving black lines for last, as they are unimportant, only need to be uniform in width.

I realize, to be super-sciency about it, I should have measured in that “metric system”. Sorry. Too New Math for me.

Preliminary vertical measurement of the vertical color rows add up to 71.875″. So, round up to 72″. Hm. That only leaves 8″ for the black lines. Not enough; I don’t want to do less than 1″ wide sashing.

Oh my god. Look at that chicken scratch. I have to stop for today. I’m going to go to the poster and count the number of different colors on the chart, and compare the colors to my color laser print.

March 12 — A casual count of the different shade of the chart revealed 4 reds, 4 oranges, 1-2 yellows, 7 blues, and 3 greens. That seems like a lot, but my gurus, Weeks and Tom, pointed out in their book that the more shades one uses, the more depth to one’s quilt. I’m going to poke around Joann’s this weekend and see what kind of selection they have. While perusing cottons online, I discover that Kona Cotton has a “a wonderfully meaty hand.” I am fond of the wonderfully meaty hand.

March 13 — Well dammit, back to measuring. I’m all kerfluffled. I just asked RF, Super-Astrophysicist, to help me with the math, which he will do after finals. Why do numbers make me ache like this? I just can’t bend them to my will, even though I know what I want to do with them. As Barbie famously quipped, “Math is hard!”

Okay, after laborious calculations, and another totally unneccesary chart, I’ve got the rough estimates for how much fabric I’ll need, including seam allowance:

• for the nine different shades of red and of orange: 1/4 yard of fabric each, EXCEPT for the next-to-lightest shade of orange: 1/2 yard
• for the yellow: 1/4 yard (may have this in scrap, left over from the Big Giant Quilt)
• for the five shades of greens and blues: 1/2 yard of fabric each, EXCEPT for the middle shade of aqua: 1/4 yard or less

I look for forward to RF helping me with making my calculations more exact. I’ve heard you can do that with math.

Go to Quiltreport 3: Science Quilt

Related hamlinks:

• Quiltreport 1
• My quilts and other projects on flickr
• Today, I taught someone to quilt
• Ducks in Bonnets!
• Gee’s Bend
• i’m a member of a qult