Quilts by Julie Ramsey
quiltris
Progress
Feb 20th
Finally got all of the blocks completed! Nothing like seeing something close to a finished result to make pushing through the repetitive tedium of piecing worth it, huh?
I was unsure about some of the extreme color contrasts for a few of the colors, but seeing the whole thing laid out makes me feel much better about how the whole thing looks. Now I’m very excited to get the blocks put together and start getting borders on it!
Tetris progress
Feb 20th
More Tetris blocks done! Two more colors to go, and then I’ll be ready to start assembling the top. Off to the fabric store today to buy materials for the borders 
Quiltris 2.0: first set of blocks finished
Feb 18th
Finished the first set of colored blocks last night, and I’m definitely pleased with the overall effect. (Not sure what I think about the colors here, the bottom is probably too dark, but I think I’ll just roll with it.) I’d say it’s not quite as impressive as the original beveled-square design, but it worked up a heckuva lot faster!
I’ve already started in on writing up instructions, and thanks to the lovely folks at the LJ quilting community, I’ve gotten some great feedback on the pattern so far. I have instructions for fabric shopping, cutting, and block construction completed, so I’ll have to wait until I’m ready to assemble the top in order to finish the rest.
Shopping victory
Feb 16th
While running some other errands today, I decided to stop by Jo-Ann to check out their selection of fat quarters for the Tetris quilt. I really lucked out: I was able to find fabric in three shades for each of the colors I needed!
I also did a test-run with the new block-construction method this afternoon, using some scrap fabric I had sitting around. (I think black, grey, and white will be a good method to show the different contrasting fabric pieces when I take the “final” pictures for the printed pattern.) Unfortunately, I messed up the math; I can never get the calculations for half-square triangles right! In this case, I think that to have 4.5″ finished blocks, I’ll need to cut the initial squares at 6 1/4″ in order to cut down the squares twice.
This leads to another bit of math– and to think I hated math in school– as I figure out how many pieces I can get out of each fat quarter, and whether or not I’ll have enough fabric to construct all the blocks. If my triangle calculations are correct, I may be short on the “medium” fabric for several colors. I’m reasonably sure I can finish the necessary pieces out of my stash, but I’ll need to account for that when I write up the pattern.
In all, I’m very excited that the fabric shopping went so well, and I’m looking forward to creating another geeky video-game quilt!
Tetris Quilt 2
Feb 16th
I’m currently working on a nicely-formatted written version of my Tetris quilt pattern, hopefully to sell as a PDF on Etsy or somesuch. The more I work on the pattern, I realize that my initial design was awfully complicated, using 1″ half-square triangles in each of the block corners, which made for an overwhelming amount of work overall.
So instead of using the complicated version with lots of itty-bitty pieces, I’ve decided to simplify the design a bit. This new version still gives the blocks a 3-d appearance, but will ultimately be a lot less work: 5″ squares sewn into triangles, cut in half, and then resewn to create the four-piece blocks shown here. The result is just as impressive, I think, and will require both less effort and less fabric shopping– only three shades of fabric per color instead of the original five.
The additional benefit of making the pattern easier to create is that it makes me a lot more motivated to craft a second one. My first quilt wasn’t the greatest, craftsmanship-wise, as I hadn’t been quilting for very long when I started the project. Now that I have several years’ experience under my belt, I’m sure this one would turn out a lot better.
Who knows, given the popularity of the first one, I could see about making several of these to sell and probably make a good profit on them. Maybe if I’m lucky, I could even see about getting one accepted into a Child’s Play benefit auction or something like that.
At bare minimum, I’ll need to create a single set of colored blocks using the new pattern, since I’d like to take pictures to include in the written instructions. If it turns into a full quilt, then that’d be an added bonus!
How to make a Tetris Quilt
Feb 10th
Want to make your own Tetris quilt? I’m working on a “fancy” version of the pattern in PDF, but until then, here are the basics
Materials:
I hope you have a big stash, access to lots of FQs, and/or very patient cutting-table ladies at your local quilt shop, because you’re going to need a LOT of different pieces of fabric! You’ll need sets of fabric in red, orange, yellow, light blue, dark blue, green, and purple; for each color, get one quarter-yards each (FQ or yardage, either one works) in five gradiating shades. Small prints work best, though larger tone-on-tone patterns are fine if that’s all you can find.
If you have difficulty finding enough pieces at once, break your fabric shopping and sewing into separate sessions. I ended up working on these blocks one color at a time, as fabric discoveries (and the cash to purchase them) permitted.
With so many fabrics to deal with, I found it was helpful to glue a scrap of each to a piece of tagboard and mark the color number with a sharpie.
Block Construction:
In order to get the 3-d effect, each 4″ colored block is made as a nine-patch with the five different colors; for reference, 1 is the lightest, and 5 is the darkest.
For one block, you’ll need the following:
Color 1, 2, 4, and 5: one strip, 2.5″ x 1.5″; one 2″ square, cut across the diagonal
Color 3: one 2.5″ square
You will also need a stack of 4.5″ squares in a black tone-on-tone print.
Color Counts
For this layout, make:
12 red
20 orange
18 yellow
18 green
18 light blue
12 dark blue
13 blue
39 non-pieced black
1. Assemble the cornerstones:
for each block, you’ll need:
1 and 4
1 and 2
5 and 4
5 and 2
If you need more than one block of a particular color, layer the two squares together, draw down the diagonal with a marker (sharpie is okay, since the ink will be inside the seam allowance) and sew 1/4″ from each side of the line.
TIP: use a 4.5″ square quilting ruler to trim each block when you’re finished sewing and pressing. With so many small blocks, it’s important that everything be square!
2. Assemble each row:
Following the diagram above, attach one corner to each side of the middle strip for the top and bottom rows. The middle segment can be speed-pieced with two 1.5″ strips and one 2.5″ strip, which is then cut into 2.5″ slices.
3. Assemble three rows into one block, pressing seams towards the center.
Top Construction
Following the layout above, assemble the top, chain-piecing the first two columns of each row together without clipping the threads, Do this for each column, and then fold the rows together to finish the horizontal seams. Having the blocks connected helps to line up all of the seams!
For this top, I finished with long-horizontal grey borders measuring 2″ wide, a 6″ border of small, multicolored dots on a black background, and another 2″ border in bright red to tie all the colors together.
Quilting
An easy way to machine-quilt the top would be to simply stitch in the ditch between each block and outline the borders.
Alternately, you can freehand an all-over pattern in either single-color or variegated thread. A meander pattern would work well, though for my top, I used angles instead of curves for a neat effect.
Finishing
Finish the quilt with a red binding and make sure to add a tag. Congratulations! Now you can play too much Tetris, dream about it, and have it decorate your bed, too!
If you make one of these on your own, I’d love to see it! Send me a pic, and I can start a gaming-quilt gallery!
Tetris Quilt
Jan 15th
It’s finally finished, after six months of off-and-on piecing and a year and a half sitting in the closet, waiting for the sandwich to be finished:
“Quiltris,” in a “Tetris DS/ Tetris Worlds” color scheme.
I’m really happy with the way this turned out. It’s far from perfect, but the overall effect is really great, especially with the 3-d shading.
I’m still practicing my machine quilting, but I really like this freehand design. I approached it like a curvy meander, but turned 90-degree angles instead. I was a bit wary of using the variegated thread, since any wonky quilting would show up very clearly on the back fabric, but I really like the way it turned out.
Since the quilt’s gotten such a positive response, I’ll probably be putting together an instruction sheet in the near future. While I doubt I’d be able to actually publish it, I’d like to share with other geek quilters out there!
