Dutchman Designs
About tessellations
The term tessellation, or tiling, refers to a mathematical phenomenon, namely an infinite, repetitive pattern of interlocking figures. A "true" tessellation in its purest form is an infinite, repetitive pattern of seamlessly interlocking copies of one and the same shape. Here are some true tessellations in two colors:
Five simple examples of true tessellation, with grid diagrams
Every true tessellation can be projected on a grid of rectangles (squares), triangles or hexagons. Four of the five examples shown above are based on squares and the fifth is derived from a grid of equilateral (sixty-degree) triangles. Some of these designs may look familiar to quilters. The curved forms in the two ones to the left, for example, are known respectively as Applecores (Double Hatchets, Friendship Curves) and Clamshells. The third pattern appears to be a cut-out from a field of Rail Fence blocks. The cross motif in the next one is found on ancient icons of the Eastern Orthodox Church traditions.
Art tessellations have been around since the dawn of humanity. The technique was raised to a high level in the abstract decorations shared by Islamic cultures. The twentieth century witnessed a major revival of the subject. It was chiefly brought about by the Dutch graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1971). His intricate patterns of tessellating figures like men on horseback, birds, fishes, reptiles and insects have been well appreciated around the world.
Copycats tessellation and grid diagram
In the "Body" of the Checkered Copycats quilt design (left), two true tessellations are playing a fugue. The most elementary of these is the grid of red and green squares. The other one, a field of dark and light cats poised to jump up like onto a table or towards a toy held in front of them, is superimposed on the squares. The tessellation is symmetrical in the sense that the quilt can be turned upside down, maintaining the same general lay-out of upright cats and their "antipods".
Checkered Copycats - Color Division Diagram
Checkered Copycats - Main Pattern
How to read this pattern
The full pattern of Checkered Copycats is given in three different diagrams that complement each other. All three show the design as a finished quilt top with no seam allowances visible. They are:
1. The Color Image (front cover)
The Color Image tells you what the Checkered Copycats quilt top may look like when finished, complete with the binding. Every field of a solid color is one pieced patch, connected to its neighboring patches or the binding by seams. For a description of the one-letter Color names below the design, please consult the next section of this pattern, Shopping for fabrics.
2. The Color Division Diagram (Page 2)
In the Color Division Diagram, the quilt top is represented in three shades: black for the two dark Colors ("A" and "C"), white for the two light Colors ("B" and "D") and grey for the three medium Colors ("E", "F" and "G"). Every patch bears its corresponding Color name. The binding has been omitted.
3. The Main Pattern (Page 3)
In the Main Pattern, the binding is absent again. There are three types of lines:
- Heavy lines mark those seamlines that divide the quilt top into its chief thematic groups: the cats in the Body of the Quilt (Colors "A", "B", "C" and "D" in the Color Image), the Corner Blocks with the "checkered" Ohio Stars (same four Colors) and the Border Groups (Colors "E", "F" and "G").
- Medium lines represent all other seamlines.
- Fine gridlines are not seamlines; they subdivide the larger patches in the Border Groups (Colors "F" and "G") into gridsquares, giving an impression as if the drawing were projected on a sheet of graph paper.
Unit of measurement: the Basic Square
Such gridsquares are here referred to as Basic Squares. The Basic Square is the universal measuring unit of the finished quilt top. The small red and green squares in the Body of the Quilt (the cats) and in the Corner Blocks, as well as the smallest patches in the Border Groups, are exactly one Basic Square large.
The dimensions of your project
Use the Basic Square as your point of departure to determine the overall dimensions of your project. For instance: if you set your Basic Square value at two inches by two inches, then your Checkered Copycats quilt will be seventy-two inches wide and seventy-four inches high. In this pattern, complete cutting and sewing instructions are given for five different sizes (Scales), with the following Basic Square values:
1 1/2" x 1 1/2";1 3/4" x 1 3/4";2" x 2";2 1/4" x 2 1/4";2 1/2" x 2 1/2".
The smallest Scale (left) will yield a wallhanging or crib quilt of 54" x 55 1/2", while the largest Scale (right) is good for a queen-size bedcover of 90" x 92 1/2".
The required yardages for every Scale are listed right below in the section Shopping for fabrics. For the exact measurements of the individual patches, see the section Cutting and sewing the components.
Shopping for fabrics
The seven Colors and their Color names
There are seven different Colors (fabrics) in the design, named "A" through "G". On the front cover, below the Color Image, these one-letter Color names are listed in their respective Colors. The schematic Color Division Diagram on Page 2 tells you the Color of every patch. The seven Colors used in the Color Image are only a suggestion; you are invited to choose Color combinations according to your own taste. The following guidelines will help you make your selection successful.
Matching pairs and a matching trio
The Colors "A" and "B" should be a matching pair, in the sense that "A" is the dark version and "B" is the light version of a particular color (cherry red / pink in the Color Image). Conversely, Color "C" is meant as the dark version of Color "D" (deep blue / sky blue in the Color Image). The difference between light and dark has to be considerable.
Notice that "A" is about as dark as "C" and "B" is about as light as "D". In other words, the two dark Colors and the two light Colors must form matching pairs in their own right.
Avoid wild or strongly contrasting prints for the Colors "A", "B", "C" and "D". Solids, fine tone-on-tone prints or cloudy dyes are best. Keep the two underlying color values well distinct, like the contrasting red and blue in the Color Image.
The Colors "E", "F" and "G", which form the four Border Groups, should work well together as a "matching trio" and not draw too much attention: the cats are the focal point. Go for medium shades, half-way between the dark and light hues in the Body of the Quilt and the Corner Blocks. For the Color Image, I chose three autumnal tones. Prints may be somewhat bolder here, especially in Color "G", which doesn't touch the cats anywhere. For the binding, I selected Color "C".
Other Color combinations that will work are, for instance, these three:
"Desert Rocks". Soft red for "A" and a matching rosy hue for "B"; soft green for "C" and a matching warm pale green for "D"; subdued grays and/or browns for "E", "F" and "G".
"Jewel Box". Cool but vibrant deep sapphire purple for "A" and a matching light lilac for "B"; cool but vibrant deep emerald green for "C" and a matching light cool "copper dome" green for "D"; wood veneer tones for "E", "F" and "G".
"Down To Earth". Deep stony reddish orange, like the color of unglazed garden pottery, for "A" and a matching light clay orange for "B"; Deep earthy yellow ochre for "C" and a matching pale sandy yellow for "D"; gray and brown soil or rock hues for "E", "F" and "G".
Tip. Before diving into your stash or going to the quilt shop, you could make photocopies of the Main Pattern (see Page 2) and color the patches, or you could draw the pattern in a quilt design program and experiment with color combinations on your computer screen.
Yardages
The Yardages Table on the back cover shows the minimum yardages of the seven Colors required to piece a quilt top in any of the aforementioned five sizes (Scales). The cut lengths were based on strips for strip piecing and rounded upward to the nearest quarter of a yard, to make sure that you will not run out of a particular Color. However, it won't do any harm to add another quarter or so, to allow for wrong cuts.
The yardages were calculated with bolts of 40" wide in mind, measured from selvage to selvage. That is less than the actual width of most quilting cottons sold in stores. It is advised to leave the surplus lengths on the strips, to keep some playroom while cutting the patches.
Tip. Checkered Copycats involves many small patches and those are prone to stretching. The problem can be effectively dealt with by starching up the fabrics before cutting. Some people prefer sizing instead of regular starch, because it doesn't stain as easily during seam pressing. Sizing can be bought in major grocery stores and pharmacies. Spray it lightly on the fabrics, iron them, sew the quilt top and rinse it in lukewarm water with a little washing detergent added. Dutchman Designs will not accept any responsibility if the result of the treatment with starch or sizing does not prove to be satisfactory, so you are advised to try out the technique on a test piece of fabric first.
Cutting and sewing the components
The individual patches
The Checkered Copycats quilt top has 1102 patches of ten different Patch Shapes. The diagram below shows the Patch Shapes in ascending size: the half-square Triangle (named "TR"; it occurs in the Body of the Quilt and in the four Corner Blocks), the Square (named "SQ"; it can be found all over the top) and the eight Rectangles (named "R1" through "R8"; they occur in the four Border Groups).
The ten different Patch Shapes
The heavier outer lines of the Patch Shapes are the cutting lines and the finer lines that echo these outlines on the inside are the future seamlines. Within every patch, the space between the two lines is quarter-inch seam allowance. The eight Rectangles are subdivided into grids of Basic Squares, shown in thin lines. In the finished quilt top, each Square "SQ", and also each pair of Triangles "TR", equals one Basic Square.
The Measurements Table on the next page gives you the actual cutting sizes of all ten Patch Shapes (width x height; "w x h") in the five different Scales. Use these absolute sizes for reference purposes, when cutting out the patches.
Scale (BS): / 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" / 1 3/4" x 1 3/4" / 2" x 2" / 2 1/4" x 2 1/4" / 2 1/2" x 2 1/2"TR Cut (ss, ls*): / 2 3/8", 3 3/8" / 2 5/8", 3 5/8" / 2 7/8", 4" / 3 1/8", 4 3/8" / 3 3/8", 4 3/4"
SQ Cut (w x h): / 2" x 2" / 2 1/4" x 2 1/4" / 2 1/2" x 2 1/2" / 2 3/4" x 2 3/4" / 3" x 3"
R1 Cut (w x h): / 2" x 3 1/2" / 2 1/4" x 4" / 2 1/2" x 4 1/2" / 2 3/4" x 5" / 3" x 5 1/2"
R2 Cut (w x h): / 2" x 5" / 2 1/4" x 5 3/4" / 2 1/2" x 6 1/2" / 2 3/4" x 7 1/4" / 3" x 8"
R3 Cut (w x h): / 2" x 6 1/2" / 2 1/4" x 7 1/2" / 2 1/2" x 8 1/2" / 2 3/4" x 9 1/2" / 3" x 10 1/2"
R4 Cut (w x h): / 2" x 8" / 2 1/4" x 9 1/4" / 2 1/2" x 10 1/2" / 2 3/4" x 11 3/4" / 3" x 13"
R5 Cut (w x h): / 3 1/2" x 6 1/2" / 4" x 7 1/2" / 4 1/2" x 8 1/2" / 5" x 9 1/2" / 5 1/2" x 10 1/2"
R6 Cut (w x h): / 5" x 6 1/2" / 5 3/4" x 7 1/2" / 6 1/2" x 8 1/2" / 7 1/4" x 9 1/2" / 8" x 10 1/2"
R7 Cut (w x h): / 6 1/2" x 6 1/2" / 7 1/2" x 7 1/2" / 8 1/2" x 8 1/2" / 9 1/2" x 9 1/2" / 10 1/2" x 10 1/2"
R8 Cut (w x h): / 8" x 6 1/2" / 9 1/4" x 7 1/2" / 10 1/2" x 8 1/2" / 11 3/4" x 9 1/2" / 13" x 10 1/2"
Whole top (w x h**): / 54" x 55 1/2" / 63" x 64 3/4" / 72" x 74" / 81" x 83 1/4" / 90" x 92 1/2"
Measurements Table for the ten Patch Shapes; seam allowances included
* Measurements of the Triangle "TR" are for either of the short sides (ss) and for the long side (ls, the hypotenuse).
** Seam allowances are not calculated in the dimensions of the whole quilt top.
Color # / AmountsA / 89 TR, 124 SQ
B / 89 TR, 150 SQ
C / 89 TR, 136 SQ
D / 89 TR, 156 SQ
E / 64 SQ
F / 16 SQ, 16 R1, 16 R2, 36 R3, 4 R4
G / 8 R3, 8 R5, 8 R6, 2 R7, 2 R8
Color/Amounts Table for the Patch Shapes
The Color/Amounts Table (right) tells you how many times every Patch Shape occurs in a particular Color. The left column (Color #) shows the Color names and the right column (Amounts) the names of the Patch Shapes. For instance, the first row reads: "Out of Color "A", cut eighty-nine Triangles (89 TR) and one hundred and twenty-four Squares (124 SQ).
So far, the data on cutting have been mainly for general reference purposes. Please keep consulting this page whenever in doubt about the right size of a patch. In the instructions following below, all patches are cut out of strips. After all cutting and sewing is done, the direction of the fabric in all patches should be automatically correct: parallel with the edges of the quilt top.
The Total Strip Lengths Tables on the following pages tell how much strip you need out certain Colors to prepare the patches according to all five Scales. Beside these total lengths, their uniform width (e.g. "sw1" = "strip width type 1", which is 1 Basic Square plus seam allowances) is also given.
As stated further above, it is advisable to allow a maximum length of 40" per strip, cut from selvage to selvage and with the surplus lengths left on.
Cutting the Plain Squares; Colors "A", "B", "C" and "D"
In this pattern, a distinction is kept between two types of Squares "SQ": the Plain Square of a single patch only and the Bicolor Square, in which two Triangles "TR" touch at their long sides (hypotenuses).
The diagram to the left shows the process of cutting the Plain Squares in their required numbers (same as in the Color/Amounts Table). The parallel lines just inside the strips and Squares represent the future seamlines. The Plain Squares are as wide as they are high ("sw1").
Strips for Plain Squares; Colors "A", "B", "C" and "D"
Scale (BS) / sw1 / Color "A" / Color "B" / Color "C" / Color "D"1 1/2" x 1 1/2" / 2" / 248" or 7 strips / 300" or 8 strips / 272" or 7 strips / 312" or 8 strips
1 3/4" x 1 3/4" / 2 1/4" / 279" or 7 strips / 337 1/2" or 9 strips / 306" or 8 strips / 351" or 9 strips
2" x 2" / 2 1/2" / 310" or 8 strips / 375" or 10 strips / 340" or 9 strips / 390" or 10 strips
2 1/4" x 2 1/4" / 2 3/4" / 341" or 9 strips / 412 1/2" or 11 strips / 374" or 10 strips / 429" or 11 strips
2 1/2" x 2 1/2" / 3" / 372" or 10 strips / 450" or 12 strips / 408" or 11 strips / 468" or 12 strips
Total Strip Lengths Table for the Plain Squares; Colors "A", "B", "C" and "D"
Cutting and sewing the Bicolor Squares; Colors "A", "B", "C" and "D"
Checkered Copycats contains 178 Bicolor Squares. 89 of them have a dark Triangle of Color "A" and a matching light Triangle of Color "B". The other 89 have a dark Triangle of Color "C" and a matching light Triangle of Color "D". They can be assembled without the necessity to cut out all the "TR" Patch Shapes first. The following five-step method tells how: it starts with simple square forms and leaves the critical Triangle cut to a point where it is easy to perform, with exact results.
Step 1. Cut strips that are a uniform "sw2" wide ("strip width 2" = 1 Basic Square plus 7/8") out of each of the four Colors (picture left). For every Color, cut such Strips, according to the Scale you have selected, to a total length as listed in the Total Strip Lengths Table at the top of Page 9.
Step 2. Cut each strip into 45 squares of one "sw2" wide and one "sw2" high (same picture; right).
Strips for Bicolor Squares; Colors "A", "B", "C" and "D"
One pair of matching "sw2" squares yields two Bicolor Squares
Scale (BS) / sw2 / Color "A" / Color "B" / Color "C" / Color "D"1 1/2" x 1 1/2" / 2 3/8" / 106 7/8" or 3 strips / 106 7/8" or 3 strips / 106 7/8" or 3 strips / 106 7/8" or 3 strips
1 3/4" x 1 3/4" / 2 5/8" / 118 1/8" or 3 strips / 118 1/8" or 3 strips / 118 1/8" or 3 strips / 118 1/8" or 3 strips
2" x 2" / 2 7/8" / 129 3/8" or 4 strips / 129 3/8" or 4 strips / 129 3/8" or 4 strips / 129 3/8" or 4 strips
2 1/4" x 2 1/4" / 3 1/8" / 140 5/8" or 4 strips / 140 5/8" or 4 strips / 140 5/8" or 4 strips / 140 5/8" or 4 strips
2 1/2" x 2 1/2" / 3 3/8" / 151 7/8" or 4 strips / 151 7/8" or 4 strips / 151 7/8" or 4 strips / 151 7/8" or 4 strips
Total Strip Lengths Table for the Bicolor Squares; Colors "A", "B", "C" and "D"
Step 3 (left in picture to the right). Lay a square of Color "A" on top of a square of Color "B", right sides together. Line them up so that all you can see is the wrong side of square "A" (or "B"). Sew along the dashed sewing lines, which are offset through 1/4" from the heavy diagonal line. Do this 45 times. Proceed likewise with the squares of Colors "C" and "D".
Step 4 (same picture, middle). After sewing, cut along the heavy diagonal line. Do this with all 45 pairs of squares "A"-"B" and with all pairs of squares "C"-"D".
Step 5 (same picture, right). Each pair of squares yields two Bicolor Squares that are of the same size as Plain Squares. The total of Bicolor Squares is 90 "A"-"B" plus 90 "C"-"D". Unfold and press them.
Alternative method: with "squaring up". This method is the same, except for the beginning and the end. The extra Step 6 means more work and more fabric, but is also an additional guarantee of exact results.
Step 1. Cut strips of one Basic Square plus one inch wide (that is 1/8" more than "sw2") out of each of the four Colors. Refer to the Basic Square of your preferred Scale to calculate the absolute width.
Step 2. Cut these Strips into 45 squares of one Basic Square plus one inch long.
Steps 3-5. Same as above.
Step 6. Using a quiltmaker's ruler, cut off the excess fabric at the edges of all Bicolor Squares until they are exactly one Square "SQ" large . When cutting, line up the forty-five degree line on your ruler with the seam and measure from the center of each Bicolor Square outward.
Orientation of prints. Wherever you work with printed calicoes instead of solids, you do not have to worry about keeping the print pointed the same way in every patch. On the contrary: the more random the orientation of the motif, the better, especially in Colors "A", "B", "C" and "D". This will add some extra life to the otherwise rigid lay-out of the quilt top. All you need to keep in check is the direction of the fabric itself, which should always be aligned with the edges of the pieces and of the top (by straight grain or cross grain).
Preparing the Composite Border Strips and Sections; Colors "E", "F" and "G"
The four Border Groups, the areas pieced out of the "matching trio" of Colors "E", "F" and "G', can be entirely assembled with the use of strips. The instructions below describe a three-step method in which two types of Composite Border Strips are prepared and cut to create the basic components of the Borders.