Tessellation Quilt How To

I've been writing how to articles on Ehow for awhile now. Most of the articles I write are sewing or craft related and I generally add an eco-friendly twist to them when I can. When I started writing articles there I could include photos for each step of my instructions. But, when Ehow was bought by Demand Media the powers that be decided writers could only choose from photos in the photo library they supplied. This is great for some things but maddening for others.

Trying to explain how to make anything without showing the actually photo might not be that difficult for a seasoned writer. But, for the reader to envision a craft, quilt or sewing item without seeing the actual piece is an entirely different ball of wax.

One of my most recent pieces was How to: Tessellation Quilt (BTW I don't pick the titles either). After a gentle nudge from AudreyGardenLady on Facebook I figured I should go ahead and post some photos of my own tessellation project. I did do it slightly different than the instructions I wrote on Ehow. I made curved lines rather than angular and to challenge myself I decided to sew it all by hand. Although I do hand sew quilt bindings and hems on clothing etc. I've never hand sewn an entire quilt so please excuse my not so perfect stitches.

Step 1

Supplies: Square piece of paper, pencil, scissors, tape, at least two different colors of fleece/felt, sewing machine or hand needle and thread, backing fabric.

1. Draw a line from one side of the paper to the other and a second line from the top of the paper to the bottom. 

Step 3. Rearranging the block

2. Label each corner and cut the paper apart on the lines.





3. Rearrange the pieces so the corners are in the center. See Step 3 photo for placement. Tape the pieces together on the back to create your tessellation shape.  Trace this shape onto another piece of paper and see how your cut out shape will fit into the draw shape like a puzzle.

  

Step 4.

4. Trace the tessellation shape onto a piece of fleece or felt. Use this single piece as your pattern to cut out the rest of your tessellation shapes. Pinning fabric to fabric is much easier than using that cardstock tessellation shape.

Step 5

5. Lay out your backing fabric. I like to back my quilts with fleece and leave out the batting so it's only two layers rather than three. Arrange your tessellation pieces on the backing fabric, alternating colors. 

6. Pin the shapes to the backing fabric, fitting them together like a puzzle. Stitch down using the pressure foot as a guide.

Step 6

But, if you are hand stitching like me I laid out my shapes as in step five then sewed together a strip of four shapes. The top photo shows the layout, the second the pieces stitched together.

Next I sewed each strip to the one above it creating a block of tessellations.  I really do not like using pins so I flattened this block to the backing fleece and started quilting the layers together.

I am currently quilting the top and am adding more strips on as I go. It's fairly abstract but I hope the look I'm trying to create comes through.

As with everything I create this quilt is made from recycled and salvaged materials.