It's Border Time, or Right Brain and Left Brain Duke It Out with the Pythagorean Theorem

I've got a border.  Much math was invoked.  There were even square roots.

Here's the mockup:

And another view from a bit further back:

And an attempted closeup of the perfect border fabric I found (on sale, no less!)  (It's greener than it looks, but the dark factor is about right.)

That's where the math came in.  I'm running a 1" light border around the patchwork center, then a dark border of width-to-be-determined-through-math, then the on-point nine-patches set with orange triangles, then dark border again (easy math this time), then binding in orange.
The fun started with that inside dark border.  Pythagoras told me that my nine-patches on point measure  4.2526406871192851 inches tall and wide.  (I'm rounding it down to 4.25" just for fun.)  Figuring the size of the completed center plus the 1" light borders, and calculating how many diagonal nine-patches I'd need to cover that distance plus enough for a dark border wasn't all that hard - 15 nine patches across for the top and the bottom, and 18 on the sides (not counting corners) would work just fine.
Except for one thing.  The calculations showed that the vertical inner borders would have to be 3/8" narrower than the horizontal ones.
This is where my right brain and my left brain declared war on each other.
Left Brain was all "Okay, the dark border will be 3/8" wider on the top and the bottom than on the sides.  Two and 3/8" here and two and 3/4" there.  No problem."
And Right Brain was all "NOOOOO!!!  It'll be lopsided.  It'll show and every part of it will look wrong.  It'll be out of balance.  It'll look like robots did it.  No.  Just no."
So then Left Brain was "Oh, stop whining.  We'll just  make the light borders on the top and bottom 3/8" wider - that won't be so obvious.  We were going to use those leftover 1.5" strips, but we can cut some extra strips to finish at 3/8", so that means starting with 7/8" strips.  One border of 1.5" and one at 7/8" will finish to 1 3/8".  Easy peasy."
So then Right Brain comes back with "Red.  The 3/8" borders in red.  So it looks like it's on purpose.  That'll be great.  Yep, red.  Or purple.  No, definitely red."
And Left Brain was "Nope nope nope, that's ridiculous.  Your ideas are stupid."  and Right Brain would have bopped Left Brain right on the nose at that point if I hadn't intervened.
"Look, both of you just back down and chill out.  First of all, I'm using 4.25" for my calculations but the actual measurement is 4.2526406871192851 - do you think that .0026406871192851 times 18 might not come back to bite my ass?  And besides, do you honestly think I can sew 18 nine-patches, on point, set with at least 36 bias-y triangles, and actually be so accurate that I'm only going to be off by 3/8 of an inch?"
That shut them up.
So the plan (because I often pretend I have a plan) is to piece all my nine-patches for the borders, and THEN calculate what widths I'll need for the dark borders.
Because I'm an empiricist, not a theoretician.  That whole "If my calculations are correct, this might work" doesn't hold a candle to "Let's just do it and then measure it afterward."



(Whoopee!  There's another fantastic scrap gathering!  Go visit Scraptastic Tuesday at Mrs Sew and Sow's for all kinds of gorgeousness!)

Argh!!!

I just noticed that the full picture of the Starry Nine Patch center has vanished from my last post!
Crap!

Here ya go:

Or maybe this one:

These are taken by holding the camera over my head and standing on tiptoe, by the way.  I gotta get a real design wall instead of this design floor...

Oh, and I found the perfect dark for the borders today.  Now for the math!

I was starting to doubt this day would come

I got all those little honking squares sewn together!


Now for the borders.
Which means I'm at a point where I'm actually going to have to think.
Yay.

 Last time I said I'd tried some practice border layouts, and shared this one with you.  (Sunbeam extra.  Void where prohibited.)

I also experimented with a bunch of other ideas, involving both the nine patches and the mountain blocks.  In all my experiments, I first laid down a light color strip in order to float the patchwork.  I plan to use lots of different lights for yet more scrap-happiness.
I tried various combinations.
Mountains facing out

2a

  

and mountains facing in.

2b

 Mountains combined in various ways with nine patches, with and without narrow dark borders thrown in.

3

4a

4b

5

That last one has possibilities...


Today I got down to some heavy duty playing, what with finishing all that patchwork.  This is getting serious now.
This might be the one...

6

or maybe this variation of it...

7

with another dark (ish?  narrow?) border around the outside, and a dark binding.  Or maybe an orange binding, though the back is going to be mainly orange, so I'm thinking a different color for the binding might be nice.
 Sing out with whatever you're thinking.  I'm always happy to get some input.  I'll be taking a few days to make a decision - after all this time, I'm not going to rush into anything hasty!


And with all those blocks being sewn together, I had ample opportunity for leaders-enders.  (I assemble one row at a time.  I've tried multiple rows simultaneously, and the time I spent second-guessing whether I was making a mistake or not made the whole enterprise less time-saving than it should have been.  One at a time may not be the most efficient way, but it works best for me.)
So, in amongst building more blocks, I puzzled out how to piece the side triangles.

And the blocks keep piling up!
When I started the project, I intended to just make enough for a throw - something to cuddle under in a chair by the woodstove.  But the blocks are so much fun to make that I'm having a hard time stopping.  I'm starting to worry that I'll end up with a house cozy...

Not completely devoid of knitting content

Though I will admit that I've lost my sense of urgency for warm woolies once the temperatures hit the 70s every day...

I'm still plugging along on my Bramblewood vest, though not without problems.

Right now it's sitting in timeout.  (Actually, I'm the one who should be in timeout, but it's not big enough to send me, so there.)  Things were going smoothly round and round until the last time I got to the cable section on the center back.  Something didn't look right.  I checked the cable section at center front and discovered that this round should have been a cable round, but I'd knitted a plain one.  Drat!  I started tinking back to the center front to have another go at it.
Unfortunately, I got interrupted.  No idea what it was, but the upshot is that I dropped my knitting into the basket and wandered off.  The next time I reached for the knitting, I forgot that I was supposed to be going in reverse and just blithely started knitting away.  Until I got to the cable section at the center back again.  Double drat!  Drat drat drat in mighty drattiness!  So I started tinking back again, and (you guessed it) got interrupted again.
But hey!  I'm getting smarter - I only knit a couple of inches the third time before I realized I should STILL be going in reverse...

So, let's talk about alpacas instead!
Saturday was the big shearing day for Wicked Good Stepmother's alpacas.  The shearers, consisting of a mom, a dad, and the three kids, arrived with mats and muscles and got down to business.

The muscles came in handy.

Not that alpacas are stubborn or anything.  Or dumb.  Unh unh. 

Lovely cooperative intelligent creatures, each and every one.

(We won't talk about the fact that this gray one peed on the girl's leg while she was trying to hold it steady...)

  Soon all four had their new spring haircuts and were looking pretty spiffy.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any pics of them at the spiffy stage, since they all had a good roll in the dirt as soon as they were released back in their pasture.  At that point they just looked like four big dustballs, so I went back to helping gather up fleece.
I really need to get that spinning wheel going, don't I?





 

O frabjous day!

So today I was
rummaging throughinvestigating my stash, looking for more of the fabric that I had already used in the big quilt.  No matter what I decide to do with the borders, I'm going to need more 9patches or more mountains in colors that match what I've already got. 
I not only found some of the fabrics, but there were some 1.5" strips already cut.  And best of all, there was a whole row of blocks already sewn together!  Callooh!  Callay!  I chortled in my joy.
Best of all, it fit right in with what was already assembled and/or laid out, with only one 9patch needing to be subbed out.
So, yay!  Extra leftovers!

Here's the top all laid out.  I got everything but the bottom four rows sewn together, and one of the rows is assembled.  One more day of sewing might get this thing in one piece.
Speaking of pieces, I did some math today.  Twenty-three rows with nineteen blocks in each row comes to 437 blocks.
No wonder it's taking so long...

Soon I'll have to make a decision about borders.  I tried a bunch of layouts today, taking pictures of each one.  In another post, I'll show what I'm considering.  No matter what I do, it's going to be a lot of work.  But I've got so much work into this top already that I'm not about to back down now.

(The sun came out every time I tried to take border pictures.  Just to annoy me.  As soon as I'd shut off the camera, it would go back behind a cloud.  Turn on the camera and here comes the sun.  Grrrr.)

And my leaders-enders project is getting a workout, what with all those little blocks being assembled.  I'd laid out some blocks and wasn't too impressed with it.  Then I turned them on point.

Oh, yeah.  There's the difference.

And linking again to Quilting is More Fun than Housework.  Come see the scrappy fun!

4096!

Any 2048 players out there?
Look what I did today!

I didn't even think that 4096 was possible...
Woohoo!

A sewing day

I got a sewing day worked in this week.  This is where I'd left off last time.

As you can see, I had to move off the design couch and onto the design floor.  I've got stacks and stacks of little blocks (they're 3.5 inches, btw - finishing to 3 inches) off to the left that I'm laying out like a crazy jigsaw puzzle.  I'd gotten some of the rows sewn together when I had to quit for the day.
Here's where it stands now:

I got the finished rows attached to the main body, plus assembled several more rows, and laid out blocks for even more rows.  (And I'm going to have to get a whole lot taller to take any more pictures.  I had to stand on the coffee table to get this shot, and it's already getting too big to catch in one photo.)  I've got about 5 more rows to lay out, then the main part of the top will be done.  I had a brief moment's panic when I thought that I had miscalculated and would need more blocks, but then realized that my miscalculation had gone the other way and I'll actually have a row left over.  (I love it when my mistakes work in my favor!)
Next I'll have to ponder borders.  I briefly considered making a border of mountain blocks, lulled as I was by the new tri-recs rulers.  Then I came to my senses and started thinking of other options.  Main contenders right now are a round of nine-patches on point (which I'm leaning towards, I think), or maybe nine patches bracketed by mountain blocks (sort of like <[]><[]><[]> ).  Or maybe I really will go whacky and do those mountains.  Auditions will commence once these blocks are assembled.

I've set aside those star blocks I was making, because I'm thinking about using some of them on the back of this quilt.  Maybe a row of them.  So now for leaders and enders, I'm making these blocks:

They're Hot Cross Bun blocks, which I'm going to combine with Single Irish Chain blocks ala Bonnie Hunter's Garden Party.  They're ridiculously easy to piece and only take seconds to cut out, so they should pile up fast.  I'm going to make the chains in various orange prints, and all the blocks will have an orange center.  (I've never been a big fan of orange, but lately it's been growing on me.  My youngest daughter's influence, no doubt.)
I don't know what size Bonnie's blocks are, but I suspect they're bigger than mine.  I'm using 1.5" strips to piece them with, so my blocks will finish to 5".  (Why, yes, I do like making small blocks.  Why do you ask?)