The Pantone Quilt Challenge link up is happening now! The link up closes for entries on Friday at 11pm (pacific). I’m really impressed with the entries so far. It’s fantastic seeing what you’ve all done!
This weekend I finished up my own Marsala quilt, which I’m calling Marsalalalala because it’s fun to say and because the working name of the design was marsalapuke from when it was in its ugly duckling phase, and that seems inappropriate.
The design comes from Equal, my triangle design generator. I actually added some functionality to it this last week but that’s for another post. There’s still more to go before it’s actually useful, but for now it’s fun for generating random triangle chaos.
The design and the quilt are not quite the same, as the design generator does not use equilateral triangles (like I thought it did, which just shows that computers do what you tell them to do, not what you think you told them to do) but my design does use equilateral triangles. Basically the only thing it means is that the quilt dimensions are not the same as the design dimensions. I also seem to have rotated one of my triangles (which is easy to do with actual equilateral triangles, as it turns out.) Oops.
I’m undecided on the quilting. I like the look but think maybe I should have done more of it? But I was worried if I did more there’d just end up being lines everywhere and it’d devolve into chaos. I do like the magenta thread I used, it’s a nice color with the collection.
The back uses some of the leftover solids from the front. I do like that it’s easier to see the quilting and you can see where I avoided going over the marsala-colored triangles. It’s not quite as obvious that I did that on the front.
For binding I calculated incorrectly and was a little short, so I threw in a bit of Kona Cocoa (which was my Marsala color choice) to finish it out. If it looks like it’s unplanned and in a weird spot, that’s because it was unplanned and is in a weird spot.
Overall I’m pretty pleased with this and relieved it moved beyond the ugly duckling phase! I definitely want to make more triangle quilts now. But before I do that, I really need to add some more functionality to Equal.
I am ineligible for any of the prizes, but I’m still going to link this up under the non-judged category of the Pantone Challenge. Don’t forget to link up this week!
Details
Design: Designed by Equal, Written by me
Dimensions: 32″ x 32″
Front: Kona Pepper, Raisin, Eggplant, Bordeaux, Crimson and Cocoa
Binding: Kona Pepper and Cocoa
Back: Kona Eggplant and Raisin
Thing I learned about triangles: The width to height ratio of an equilateral triangle is not 1:1, but is instead 1:0.866. This explains SO many things about the creation of this quilt!
28 thoughts on “Finish: Marsalalalala”
HahA. I recently did the same thing with equilateral triangles and couldn’t work out why my mini was so wide. AND I have a math degree… Der. Your quilt is lovely. I like the colours and the pattern – it looks fab
I have computer science degree, so I don’t REALLY have an excuse either! Thank you for letting me know it’s not just me, though!! That makes me feel better. 😀 Thank you so much for the kind words on the quilt, as well!
Ahhhhhhh marsalapuke 🙂 We have such a complicated relationship with our works-in-progress, ha! I love that. The final name and the finished piece are total perfection. Love! — Julie
Seriously, why do WIPs have to go through that ugly duckling phase anyway?? It’d be so much easier to finish things if they got progressively nicer looking instead of “this looks nice” “OMG WHAT HAPPENED THIS IS AWFUL I AM SUCH A FAILURE AHHHHHHH” “hrm, maybe it has promise” “wow okay that’s pretty nice” “why did I ever hate this anyway?”
Exhausting!
I love the story behind the name. I can definitely resonate with both the working name and final name… I am a fan of matchstick quilting, but it can take forever. So I actually applaud people who know how to stop. The quilting thread color is just right.
Aww, thank you!! I’m sorry you are familiar with the ugly duckling thing, though. It’s so rude that they do that. 🙂
I’m also a fan of matchstick quilting but it just didn’t seem appropriate for this one. I’m still not convinced I did enough quilting though, but when I drew it out in Illustrator with more lines it went back to marsalapuke land. :/
Ahhhhh, I thought equilateral triangles were measured by the angle. Not having a math degree, I didn’t 1:1 or anything similar. And with all that said, I would probably have grabbed my equilateral ruler/template and whacked away with abandon and left the math to the math majors. ;}
Perhaps it isn’t the “ugly duckling” phase, but “growing pains”?
Good finish.
You’re right, they are measured by the angle. I was just silly and assumed that if all the angles were the same, their height and width must be the same. Math is weird.
The reason my quilt is different than the program is because I grabbed my ruler and cut on the 60 degree line. It’s the program that is wrong, no templates to use there! ^_^ (Although with that said, I actually like the triangles in the program better, so I guess it was not what I intended but not exactly wrong… :))
I’m not sure what to call that phase, but man there are times when I assume I will never be able to like the way a current project looks. And then I finish and voila! I like it again.
PS. Have I ever told you I love making my geometry teacher roll over in his grave–with my quilting? You do know, girls can’t do math.
Hah! Quilters know more complex math than most of my CS colleagues do. 🙂
I love the name(s)! Also, I spent far too long (i.e. more than three seconds) looking for the wrong-way-round triangle. I’m convinced you say these things just to mess with me 😉
also, LOVE IT! I love that it was generated using code you wrote. That is so bloody cool!
Thank you, Charlotte! It was truly a unique feeling to be making something designed by something else that I made. WEIRD.
As for the triangle that’s turned the wrong way, it’s uhhh bottom row, to the left of the dusty purple (Raisin) one. It’s rotated so that the dark triangle is upper left and it should be upper right. 🙂 I didn’t notice until I was marking out the quilting and was having trouble going from the drawing in Illustrator to the actual quilt. 🙂
Love the quilt Anne. Your ugly duckling conversation with it slays me. I’ll be quoting it in my head next time I hit the all caps portion and hang on till I get to the happy ending question.
Sometimes quilts just need to go on time out! There are plenty of projects I was in TOTAL HATE with and so I threw them in a drawer for a few months. When I pulled them out I thought, “why didn’t I like this? It’s fine.” And then I can go on my merry way. But I don’t think I’ve ever had a project that I’ve loved from beginning to end. Except maybe the Nyan Cat pixel quilt. But that’s just because it made me giggle maniacally.
I think it turned out pretty dang fantastic! Had to laugh at the Marsalapuke name…kinda the way I felt! It takes a lot of will power and dedication to keep going when something is in the ‘ugly stage’. You never know how it will turn out in the end. The good news: Marsala is soon to be a thing of the past and we can sit back and wait for the 2016 color of the year!! (hopefully it will be more to our liking!)
Thank you so much! I’m both glad and sad that you went through the same marsalapuke phase! I can’t imagine that they’ll pick another neutral next year. 🙂 I’m holding out hope that navy will finally get it’s year! Which I guess is kind of a neutral, come to think of it. But that would be okay. 🙂
This quilt has progressed into a fabulous piece. This is such a hard colour to work with and you have made it come together so well with your colour combination. I loved how you also learned so much from the quilt.
Thank you so much for the kind words! I totally forgot to mention how I chose the colors. Maybe I will do another post on that. 🙂 The colors were the thing I spent the most time on, so I really appreciate your compliment!
I love the quilting, and wouldn’t change a thing. It’s so interesting the way the lines don’t come together on the back and create this unusual pattern but it seems so organized from the front like all those straight lines belong where they are. And re: the ugly duckling phase, thank you for talking about that. I think it’s so important to see through the ugly duckling phase, it may enter an uglier duckling phase and then I’m okay with quitting on a design but just past the ugly is often something truly inspired!
Thank you so much! 😀 I’m trying to pay a little more attention to my quilting, even if I default to variations of straight lines. 🙂
I find it strange how I’d say probably 95% of my projects go through that ugly duckling phase. It is SO hard to work through it, too! Although to be fair, part of the ugly duckling phase was because one of the colors I was using was off. Changing out the color made a world of difference. So maybe it’s just a matter of paying attention to WHAT is making it ugly and deciding if it’s something that needs to be changed or will go away on its own. (For instance, I think I may just not like the look of raw edges of cloth or something!)
Your design is fabulous… as I knew it would be. In fact, I’ll reluctantly admit that you made Marsala look GOOD! 🙂 Love the interplay of triangles. I would have quilted the heck out of this one because: 1) it’s small, so it would be easy to go crazy; and 2) those solid spaces are dying to be shown off. Let me know when you want something quilted fancy-pants style!
Thank you!! I’m laughing about making Marsala look good. 🙂 Man, I’d love something quilted fancy-pants style! I’m not sure I have anything worthy currently, though..
This came out so well! Those colours…! They pulled together so well in the end; it reminds me of some luxurious dessert. I did lol @ “Marsalapuke” though – SO know that feeling! The quilting works really well too, I’d say it was just enough. I’m very keen to do another of these Equal quilts again, especially after I saw the updates you made to it – it looks much friendlier already. 🙂
Thank you so much for the nice comments about the quilt! 😀 You should give me a bit more time to update Equal, as it still doesn’t do anything friendly like calculate the number of triangles or give piecing instructions or anything. 🙂 It may be a bit before it does, though!
I have been remiss in not mentioning how much I like your quilt. Your points are great and the quilting perfect. Way to go.
Thank you so much! 😀 The points are a little crazy in places because I pre-cut all the triangles and sewed them all together into bigger triangles and then realized I’d cut them out the wrong size… But there’s enough of them that it masks the mistakes. ^_^
This is great! I really like what you’ve done with the colors. I hope you offer 2 versions of the tool in the future – equilateral and isosceles!
I hadn’t even considered offering both! I’m working on the code to generate the written pattern to follow and the templates to use. Once I’m done with the isosceles version, I’ll see how much work it will be to add in equilateral support!