They say creativity and numbers do not go hand in hand. I like numbers, I like them very much. I like counting everything, measuring, calculating, sorting, comparing, planning ahead.
It is possible I inherited that from my father, whose working days consisted of numbers professionally. On his days off he enjoyed numbers around him in just the same way, whether peeling potatoes, whipping semolina mousse or stacking firewood.
Imagine a couple of tonnes of briquettes arriving (the whole winter's supply), and when father had stacked them all in the cellar, he could tell you how many briquettes there were. I always asked just in case, in case he had lost count or forgotten to count somewhere.
Unlike some especially creative quilters (read: Ombluse Mamsel, who starts sewing at one end and sees what and how as the work goes along), my patchwork is done with the help of a calculator, an xls spreadsheet and sometimes graph paper as well. Out of practical necessity.
Today I am sewing a quilt with tractors for my youngest grandchild, as a day quilt for an extendable bed (80x140 cm).
The boy is a great admirer of machines and especially of every kind of tractor, bulldozer, excavator and fire engine too. It seems as though his inner dignity and sense of security depend largely on whether he has one of those machines in his hand at that moment or in a picture in a book in front of him.
I got hold of a splendid fabric with tractors and cut the pictures out. How I tried to calculate in advance how many machines would fit on the quilt and how big the frames around the pictures should be and how wide the strips between the squares... The quilt has to end up the right size and symmetrical. But that arithmetic was too much even for me. I got seriously stuck with it. I decided to do without final calculations this time.
The tractors now have frames around them. Each one a different size, because the pictures were different sizes to begin with.
Between the tractor pictures go coloured squares. To get the squares, I first cut strips from each colour and from the grey background fabric. There are 48 m of strips in all. Equal quantities of each colour, and 8 times more of the background colour, of course.
Next I cut the coloured strips crosswise into pieces, exactly as wide as needed to make squares in the end.
A shame that I did not do my calculations before ordering the fabric; I had to order 10 m more of the grey 🙂
When the fabric arrives and the work can go on, I will write more.
The quilt's pattern is finished. Four patterns, in fact.
From two I sew 100% cotton quilts. One with a yellow frame, the other green, filled with cotton towelling, a cotton backing and plenty of quilting. Size 100x130 cm. The backing and the cotton fabric used as filling I washed through beforehand.
From the other two patterns I sew day quilts for an extendable bed.
To those I added, instead of frames, one more row of coloured squares all round. The backing is cotton fabric as well, washed beforehand. The filling, though, is lofted polyester wadding. That way the little quilt is slightly stiffer and it is easier for a child to straighten the day quilt themselves.
A few pictures of the finished quilts too.
More pictures in the portfolio, on the children's quilts page.
