Kathy K. Wylie

We wrap up our series on design exercise #1 this week with the results from the last of our five designers, Kathy K. Wylie.  We have been working on exercises from the book Fearless Design for Every Quilter, by Lorraine Torrence and Jean B. Mills (C&T Publishing, 2009).  For this first exercise, we chose a shape and used it to created four compositions utilizing different forms of visual balance.  To see the results from the first four designers, click on Hilary, Marnie, Joyce, or Karen.

Kathy chose to work with a swirly “S” shape, which looks a little like a musical symbol with a bump on one side.  She chose this shape, not only because it appears in her quilt “Flourish on the Vine”, but because she liked it and it interested her.  But she quickly realized that working with an asymmetrical shape presented some challenges and that she really had to focus on the negative space.  Her color scheme was black and gold and each border fabric was chosen to complement the type of balance in the composition.

Sample 1 – Crystallographic Balance

In this all-over design, Kathy tried to keep the spacing roughly even and to vary the angle of each shape enough to avoid creating a pattern.  She said it reminded her of stipple quilting and Karen agreed.  The group felt that the border complemented the design and noticed the attempt to match the border pattern at the mitered corners.  They concluded this to be a successful presentation of crystallographic balance.

Sample 2 – Mirror Symmetry

This composition portrays mirror symmetry on both the horizontal and vertical axis.  Kathy struggled to balance the negative space inside the four shapes and ended up making the width and height unequal.  Hilary liked the secondary shape formed in the negative space and felt like she was looking at a cathedral ceiling.  Joyce wondered if the scale of the design was a bit too small in relation to the size of the piece.  Again, the group felt that the border enhanced the design.

Sample 3 – Radial Balance

Although Kathy set out to create radial balance, this composition could also be considered an example of rotational symmetry.  This one was her – and Joyce’s – favorite!  The group felt that it was balanced and lovely, but Hilary wondered if something more could have been added to the inside space to enhance the design.  Karen felt the border fabric was particularly effective because of its repetition of the S shape.

Sample 4 – Asymmetrical Balance

In this asymmetrical composition, Kathy added the element of scale.  Hilary believed this was successful and that it gave the impression that the shapes were receding into the distance.  The others weren’t as convinced.  Marnie felt it seemed bottom heavy and Karen thought it looked crooked.  The group agreed that this piece could have been stronger.

Karen Menzies

We have been looking at the results of our first exercise from the book Fearless Design for Every Quilter, by Lorraine Torrence and Jean B. Mills (C&T Publishing, 2009).  Our challenge was to choose a shape and arrange it into four compositions using different forms of visual balance.  So far, we have seen the work of three designers:  Hilary, Marnie, and Joyce.  We continue our series this week with the fourth of our five designers, Karen Menzies.

Karen’s chosen shape was “the segment”.  As Karen explains, “When more than one segment is combined, the shape morphs into circles.  I found it liberating to be able to manipulate the segments into different shapes.”  This manipulation and metamorphosis tested us as the segments weren’t always obvious, but we are always up for a challenge!

Sample 1 – Vertical Balance

Karen’s composition portrays mirror symmetry on a vertical axis.  To emphasize this, she made the piece rectangular – taller than it is wide.  We felt the use of thick and thin parallel lines reinforced the vertical feel and appreciated the segments incorporated into the red border.  There was some discussion about scale and whether the “cookie jar” was too large for the space.  What do you think?

Sample 2 – Rotational Balance

Although Karen set out to create rotational balance, with each quadrant appearing the same when rotated 90 degrees, the result could also be considered radial balance.  All the elements both revolve and radiate from a central core.  We liked the many secondary designs that were created in this piece, including the eight pointed star in the middle, and the color scheme that was used.  We felt the many shapes created movement, perhaps even too much.  Joyce felt that her eyes travelled all over the piece not knowing where to rest.

Sample 3 – Asymmetrical Balance

We loved this one!  Simple color scheme, simple shapes, simple lines – with such a striking result.  In reality, there is a lot of complexity and many factors are working together to create asymmetrical balance.  Vertical lines balance horizontal lines.  Black balances white.  The red circle creates a strong focal point, although there was some discussion regarding its placement.  But overall, we felt this was a very successful composition.

Sample 4 – Crystallographic Balance

We were divided on this one.  Hilary and I felt this was a beautiful example of crystallographic balance.  With its allover pattern and no discernible focal point, we thought it should be printed onto fabric yardage!  Marnie and Joyce, on the other hand, considered it to be asymmetrically balanced based on the fact that the circles were different sizes.  But regardless of its classification, we agreed it was balanced, unified, and made good use of color.

Joyce O'Connell

We continue our series this week with the third of our five designers, Joyce O’Connell.  Our group is working on exercises from the book Fearless Design for Every Quilter, by Lorraine Torrence and Jean B. Mills (C&T Publishing, 2009).  For this first exercise, we chose a shape and used it to created four compositions utilizing different forms of visual balance.  If you are just joining us, you can go back and see the results from Hilary and Marnie by clicking on their names.

Joyce chose to work with an arrow, which could be classified as a complex rectilinear shape if you think of it as a combination of the two simple geometric forms of a rectangle and a triangle.  A straight arrow would be symmetrical along one axis but not the other.  Joyce enjoyed working on these compositions but felt she would like to do them again since she learned so much during the process about working with visual balance.

Sample 1 – Asymmetrical Balance

Although Joyce set out to work with asymmetrical balance, she was unsure if her piece truly reflected that.  We felt that it was asymmetrical and balanced for the most part even if the sense of asymmetry could have been stronger.  Hilary wondered if it might have helped had the arrows been in different sizes or materials.  I actually saw quite a bit of symmetry in the composition, with the two corner arrows mirroring each other and the remaining three distributed fairly equally from the center.

Sample 2 – Rotational Symmetry

It is clear, by following the arrows, that each quadrant is equal but rotated by 90 degrees.  We liked the strong color contrast, the excellent sense of movement, and the focal point created by the central squares.  Marnie questioned the impact on the overall balance caused by the unequal distance between the arrows horizontally and vertically.  Many of us commented on the narrow red borders.  Karen believed they made the four quadrants no longer equal and I felt they gave the piece a rectangular feel.  Having one end of each strip extend to an edge would have reinforced the feeling of rotation.

Sample 3 – Radial Balance

Again, there was no doubt about the radial balance in this composition with its obvious central point and the double-headed arrows spinning outward from it.  Good movement is produced as the eye follows the arrowheads out and in.  We were intrigued with the choice to present this piece on point and were mezmerized by the stark contrast of black and white.

Sample 4 – Crystallographic Balance

We all agreed that this was an excellent example of crystallographic balance.  The arrow heads move all over the black background equally without the eye focusing on any one in particular.  The strong contrast in color is effective and the border acts as a strong boundary.  Wonderful!

Marnie Mascioli

Last week, we started looking at the results of our first exercise from the book Fearless Design for Every Quilter, by Lorraine Torrence and Jean B. Mills (C&T Publishing, 2009).  Our challenge was to choose a shape and arrange it into four compositions using different forms of visual balance.  We continue our series this week with the second of our five designers.

Marnie Mascioli chose the letter “M” for her shape – I wonder why?!  She also chose black and white batiks that were opposite each other in color for her backgrounds and a fuchsia batik for her M’s.  We felt this color scheme was bold, strong and graphic with a high energy.  Hilary pointed out that the letter M itself is in the form of mirror symmetry vertically.

Sample 1 – Rotational Symmetry

Marnie set the Ms on point and alternated the background fabrics between black and white.  She also added a small M in the corners of an otherwise black border.  We agreed that the positions of the letter Ms suggested rotational symmetry although Karen speculated that the strong contrast in background fabrics suggested mirror symmetry.  Hilary and I both wondered about the orientation of the corner Ms and felt that the composition might have been more unified if all the shapes had been facing the same direction.

Sample 2 – Mirror Image Symmetry

Although Marnie set out to balance her composition with mirror image symmetry, she realized it could also be considered radial symmetry.  We all liked the secondary design – an eight-pointed star – created in the center of the four Ms.  We agreed that the borders formed a beautiful frame for the composition and that this was a very effective and balanced design.

Sample 3 – Asymmetrical Balance

In this composition, Marnie thought of her Ms as row houses sitting on the horizon.  Karen felt that placing uneven quantities of black on the bottom and white on the top resulted in good balance through color ratio.  She thought the fuchsia Ms created a strong focal point and Joyce liked the way they were positioned as if on the horizon.  While we agreed it had balance, Hilary and I wondered if perhaps more could have been done to add to the asymmetrical feel of the piece.

Sample 4 – Shifted Row Symmetry

This was Joyce’s favorite composition from Marnie.  She felt the impact of the fuchsia against the black background was very dramatic as each M alternated across the surface.  This piece could also be considered crystallographic, based on the fact that there is an overall pattern without a focal point.  Once again, interesting shapes are formed in the negative space.  Some of us believed the composition would have been even more balanced with an odd number of columns and rows.

Hilary Rice

Back in January, I wrote an article about the book Fearless Design for Every Quilter, by Lorraine Torrence and Jean B. Mills (C&T Publishing 2009).  At that time, I mentioned that a group of fellow quilters would be completing exercises from the book and that I would be sharing our progress here with you.  Exercise 1 has now been completed and here are the results from the first of the five designers.

The assignment began with choosing a shape.  (See the articles previously written on the element of shape.)  The challenge was to use our shape to create four compositions utilizing different forms of visual balance  (See Balance Part 1 and Part 2).

Hilary Rice decided to use a circle as her shape.  She felt that it was both simple and the purest of all shapes.  She used blue fabrics for her compositions as well as foil and free-motion stitching.  The group agreed that Hilary’s color scheme was effective and conveyed a sense of calmness and tranquility.  And we loved the foiling and stippling!

Sample 1 – Rotational Symmetry

Each quadrant in this piece is the same, whether rotated or mirror-imaged, and it is well balanced.  I loved the effect of transparency created by the thread work, where the foiled shapes appear to overlap the navy blue circle.  Did you realize that the “orange peel” shape is a derivative of overlapping circles?  Karen thought it had a strong sense of movement – it even looks like a propeller!

Sample 2 – Radial Balance

In this piece, Hilary used thread work to create a circle as the central core and blue spokes to radiate and rotate around it.  Once again, I saw interesting derivatives of the circle shape in the navy blue fabric and the foiling.  We agreed that this composition is visually balanced and unified.

Sample 3 – Crystallographic Balance

Hilary thought that scattering circles would be simple – like polka dots.  But in fact, she found it difficult to place them randomly enough to appear scattered.  She couldn’t resist adding a stitched circle in behind them to add unity, and this prompted some discussion.  We all felt the stitched circle was effective, but we wondered if it created a focal point and thus counteracted the idea of a crystallographic all-over pattern.  Regardless, we agreed that the composition was visually balanced.

Sample 4 – Asymmetrical Balance

This is the composition that appeals to Hilary the most and we all enjoyed it too!  Marnie thought the positioning of the inner and outer circles along with the differences in scale added interest and created harmony and balance.  But there were some differing opinions regarding its balance.  Much of the discussion revolved around the navy blue circle.  Joyce pointed out that the use of a dark color brought that circle forward and I noted that it made it visually the heaviest.  Karen felt there needed to be more in the top half to balance that weight.  What do you think?

Crystallographic balance occurs when elements are distributed equally throughout a composition.  There is no focal point and everything has equal emphasis.  The effect is an allover pattern, either within or outside the structure of a grid. 

One-patch quilt designs could be considered crystallographic, particularly if the fabrics are placed randomly.  Hexagons arranged in concentric circles – like a Grandmother’s Flower Garden design – appear radially balanced.

But with the fabrics placed randomly, the balance becomes crystallographic.  Each hexagon has equal emphasis and there is no focal point.

The blue bird appliqué design we saw last week could be placed in a random arrangement to achieve crystallographic balance.

Or, the birds could be arranged evenly in a grid.  In this case, the composition is also symmetrically balanced – also known as translational symmetry.

My quilt Butterfly Kisses would be an example of crystallographic balance.  Drunkard’s Path blocks are interspersed with plain blocks and randomly arranged to create an allover pattern.

With asymmetrical balance, the composition cannot be divided or distributed equally from a central axis.  The two halves must have equal visual weight but the elements are arranged unevenly.  Asymmetrical balance is much more complicated and difficult to attain, but it is often considered more visually interesting and exciting.

Examples of asymmetrical patchwork blocks would include Attic Window and Little Red Schoolhouse.

Back to the blue birds, does this asymmetrical composition feel balanced?  Or do the three birds grouped together visually outweigh the one bird alone?

Does it help if the single bird is larger than the rest?

How about if more birds join the flock?

As you can see, finding balance in an asymmetrical composition is challenging and subject to many varying factors.  I was fairly certain I wouldn’t find any examples of asymmetrical balance within my own work, but I was wrong.  No Ordinary Child is an asymmetrical composition of traditional patchwork blocks such as Four Patch, Flying Geese, Diamond in a Square, Four X, Unequal Nine Patch and Rail Fence.

There is structural balance, as in the “stability produced by even distribution of weight on each side of the vertical axis”, and there is visual balance, as in “an aesthetically pleasing integration of elements” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary).  When it comes to quilts, and other two-dimensional works of art, we are concerned with visual balance.  If structural balance is produced by an even distribution of physical weight, visual balance is attained through the distribution of visual weight.

Many factors affect the visual weight of an object.  Large shapes appear to weigh more than small shapes.  Light-colored shapes seem to weigh less than dark-colored shapes.  Bright colors, complexity, variety, and contrast all demand attention and add visual weight.  The challenge is to arrange all these elements – and more – into a pleasing composition.  When visual balance is missing, it makes us feel uneasy.

There are four main types of visual balance:  symmetrical, radial, crystallographic, and asymmetrical.  We will examine symmetrical and radial balance first, since they share similar characteristics.  In symmetrical balance, we imagine a line drawn through the vertical or horizontal center and we see both halves as either identical or as mirror-images of each other.  With radial balance, which is also symmetrical, the elements revolve or radiate from a central core.  By their very nature, symmetrical designs are balanced.  Let’s look at some examples.

The classic Four-Patch block and the Courthouse Steps block are symmetrical patchwork designs.  Whether you divide the block in half vertically or horizontally, both halves are the same.

When the element of color is added to the blocks, notice the impact on the visual weight.  Don’t the bright red patches seem heavier in the Four-Patch block and the dark blue logs heavier in the Courthouse Steps block?

Now let’s imagine working with an appliqué motif, such as this blue bird.

We could achieve symmetrical balance by mirroring two birds on an imaginary vertical axis…

… horizontal axis …

… or both.

We could also rotate each bird.  Each quarter remains the same.

As a fairly traditional quilter, most of my quilts are balanced symmetrically.  One quilt, however, is perfectly symmetrical.  No matter where you divide it in half – vertically, horizontally, even diagonally – the other half is exactly the same.  The quilt is called “Heart’s Desire”.

With radial balance, the focus shifts to the central core.  Dresden Plate and Mariner’s Compass blocks are both examples of patchwork blocks with radial balance.  The designs are symmetrical but they also radiate and rotate around the center.

Here are twelve blue birds in radial balance – what a lovely wreath!

It might not surprise you to learn that I am a very big fan of radial balance – all of my sewflake designs rotate around a central core!  This design, from the quilt “Go Fish”, features twelve fish in radial balance.

First, I needed to figure out sizes:  the length and width of each swag; how many swags would fit in each border; and the length and width of the borders.  To do this, I used EQ6 (EQ7 wasn’t out yet).  The quilt hadn’t been designed using EQ software, but I believed I could use the quilt layout worktable to help me visualize the proportions.

I entered the dimensions of the center panel, added a narrow pieced border, then auditioned a variety of border widths and swag placements.  I realized that three swags along the vertical borders would have different dimensions than the two along the horizontal borders, and that it would be much easier to keep all the swags the same size.  This meant placing only two swags along the vertical borders and leaving a space that would have to be filled with something else.

Having determined the dimensions of the swag, I was able to print it to size from EQ6 to use as a template.

Now I was ready to start filling the swag with fruit, but I quickly ran into trouble.  How could I balance size, shape, color and scale?  How would I handle the way elements overlapped?  After a few false starts, I came up with the following approach.

I printed pages and pages of colored photographs of fruit – different sizes, different angles, different hues.  Then I cut them out and arranged them on the swag template like a collage.  In this way, I was able to create a balanced composition for my swag design.

From here, I traced the collage to produce a line drawing.  I made templates for each patch (over 150 of them!) and chose fabrics.  But I still had some nagging doubts.  How could I be sure of the best background fabric for the borders until the swags were appliquéd?  What if I changed my mind about their placement when everything came together?  To keep my options open, I came up with this final approach.

I decided to appliqué each patch in the swag onto a muslin background, leaving the outside edges just basted.  This had the added benefit of being much easier to work with than long strips of border fabric!

When the appliqué and embroidery were complete, I removed the basting thread and trimmed the muslin along the outside edges of the swag.  I now had a complete unit to appliqué onto the border strips.

These border swags may have tested me creatively, but with persistence, ingenuity, and some good ole’ trial and error, each challenge was overcome.  Don’t give up, because you never know what you can do until you try!

If you have been following along, you will recall that this quilt was inspired by a passage in John 15:  “I am the vine; you are the branches.  If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit.”  The completed center panel represents the vine and the branches, so the borders needed the fruit!

All along, I had been visualizing swags for the outer borders.  I remembered seeing swags filled with fruit in a Dover book of Empire Designs and hoped I might be able to adapt one of them for my quilt.  Franz Sales Meyer, in his Handbook of Ornament, describes clusters of fruit hanging in a curve as festoons.  Fruit festoons were popular decorative elements in Roman, Renaissance, and later styles.  Unfortunately, there was not sufficient detail in these sketches for an appliqué design.

Drawing my own version from scratch was a daunting prospect.  How would I maintain the scale of each type of fruit?  How would I handle the way the elements overlapped?  And what about color?  I would need to use color to help identify each variety of fruit but at the same time coordinate with the palette in the center panel.  How could I balance colors in a line drawing?

Then there was size and shape to think about.  The quilt is rectangular, so how many swags would fit best on each side?  How wide would the borders have to be?  How could I balance the elements in the long vertical borders with those in the shorter horizontal borders?  Yikes, did I even have what it would take?

As they say, you never know what you can do until you try.  Here is one appliquéd swag – one festoon of fruit – and next week I will answer all these questions and tell you how I came up with the design.

Swath Tool
This tool is found on the Appliqué tab in the Block Worktable.  Here’s how it works.  You draw a path…

and then EQ7 fills in the path with either diamonds…

or flying geese!  Pretty cool, right?

I read an article about curved flying geese that stated they were quite easy to construct using paper foundation piecing.  Paper foundations are available from the Print Menu, so I checked to see how EQ7 would handle this curved flying geese unit.  Beautiful!

Serendipity Tools
These tools are found in the Block Menu.  EQ6 included three serendipity tools (which I may have noticed before, but just forgot):  Frame Block, Tilt Block, and Merge Blocks.  EQ7 adds four more and they’re pretty fun.

Click & Flip Blocks
This tool takes the top left corner of a block and flips it around to create new combinations.  Watch what it does with this Maltese Cross block.

Shrink & Flip Blocks
This tool shrinks a block to one quarter and uses that to create new combinations.  Here’s what happens with an Hourglass block.

Kaleidoscope Blocks
This one is very cool.  It uses a triangular portion of a block to create new combinations.  Here’s our Maltese Cross block again, followed by an Orange Peel block.  Amazing!

Fancy Star Blocks
This tool fits a block into a diamond shape, and uses those diamonds to create a star.  You can choose how many points in the star – between 5 and 10.  Here are the same two blocks in an eight-pointed star.

There’s a lot more to see and do in EQ7 – these are just a few highlights.  If you would like to learn how to use this amazing quilt design software, watch for my fall schedule and two EQ7 classes coming soon.