With the publication of “World of Geekcraft,” I’ve come up with the harebrained scheme to come up with an ENTIRE BOOK of geeky math-and-science related patterns. My parents, both geeks (obviously) have been great resources for coming up with ideas. My dad, however, went above and beyond the call of duty to work on a design we called “Escher’s Chainmail,” though I think it would be better called a “triple wedding ring.” Dad drafted up a rough pattern in Visio and sent it to me last night, and the more I look at it, the more I think that A) it’s a killer design; B) I think I could pull it off if I made plastic templates, approached the design sensibly, and sewed carefully; C) it’s definitely a unique take on a traditional pattern; and D) This might be a good option for publication as a small book, especially if I could pitch it to Omnigrid and have them make a set of acrylic templates.

The construction would be done very similar to a double wedding ring, with circles and a series of “wedges”, plus there’d be a three-sided middle piece (as opposed to a traditional four-sided curved square shape) in the middle. In my head, the drafting would go something like this:

  • Start with the green circles (outlined in purple), and piece those using a series of wedges: one triangular, one sort of rounded/slanted, and one rectangular.
  • Then, you’d move on to the “melons” (outline in yellow on the top-left block), which would have a pieced center with triangles, rectangles, and TEENY rectangles at the sides.
  • Then you’d piece the red curve the same way you did the green circles and add it to the side of that unit.
  • Next up would be the middle of the green rings; you’d start with the curvy-edged hexagon and add the two pieces to the end. That would let you piece all of the green circles.
  • Then you’d need to piece the “Z” units (light yellow), which would operate pretty much the same way as the orange pieces.
The only hard part I could foresee would be assembling all the green rings and the “Z” pieces; curved seams are notoriously difficult and best left to the intermediate/advanced quilter.  You could stitch rings to the Z’s, but I’m not sure how you would join the intersections of the greens; maybe doing something like this, but with a bit more empty space between the rings to give a little more breathing room in the piecing?
I think that the larger the pieces are, the easier it’s going to be. If each green circle were 25″ in diameter, a 5-green layout would make for a reasonably sized lap quilt, and you could always add more circles to increase it to bed size.
I’ve already contacted a company for a rough price estimate on getting one set of acrylic templates cut, so we’ll see how that turns out.
Am I completely bonkers for wanting to try something like this personally, much less considering shopping it out? I think so. But I think there’s a lot of possibility here, and it certainly couldn’t hurt to give it a shot!