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Step 6Easy piecing technique: pixelation
The simplest case of the tiling approach is to make the entire top out of a regular grid of squares. This has the advantage of making the cutting of pieces very easy, but you often need a pretty high resolution grid to get a good looking quilt top. The best thing about pixelation as a piecing strategy is that patterns are easy to create digitally and there is a great wealth of pixelated artwork out there to help inspire you. For instance, there are some awesome quilts based on the pixels from 8 bit video game sprites--If you haven't ever searched the web for "Mario Quilt" you should take a minute do so now.
To create your own pixellated pattern either begin with a digital drawing program or start with a paper concept sketch and scan / photograph it to get it into a drawing program. You can also work with graph paper, which is what I used to do when I was younger and less savvy with digital drawing tools, but the colors and immediacy of a drawing program are really helpful if you're doing anything complicated.
Decide on the resolution of your quilt top and down-res the image to match that size. It might help maintain clarity as you scale the image if you adjust the contrast (depends on the drawing program and the image). Once it is the correct resolution, the pixels will probably be blurred colors from the scaling operation. Paint each pixel a solid color to create the final pattern and then resize the image back up, turning off anti-aliasing (if your program has that option) to get a nice pattern where the pixels are big enough to see. I know that these image processing instructions aren't really specific enough because they will vary with your design and your tool of choice, but you get the idea: make digital image of the resolution of your quilt top, edit pixels to make a pattern.
Once you've got the pattern, choose colors and cut pixel squares, then begin the process of sewing them together, remembering to use a divide and conquer construction strategy. First pick a block size (10x10 shown below) then think about making 10 10x1 strips. To make each strip sew a 5 2x1 pairs, then one 4x1 and one 6x1, then sew those halves together to complete the 10x1 strip. Once you've got rows created use the same technique to join the second dimension. Once you've got 10x10 blocks, sew them together into rows using the same technique again.
To create your own pixellated pattern either begin with a digital drawing program or start with a paper concept sketch and scan / photograph it to get it into a drawing program. You can also work with graph paper, which is what I used to do when I was younger and less savvy with digital drawing tools, but the colors and immediacy of a drawing program are really helpful if you're doing anything complicated.
Decide on the resolution of your quilt top and down-res the image to match that size. It might help maintain clarity as you scale the image if you adjust the contrast (depends on the drawing program and the image). Once it is the correct resolution, the pixels will probably be blurred colors from the scaling operation. Paint each pixel a solid color to create the final pattern and then resize the image back up, turning off anti-aliasing (if your program has that option) to get a nice pattern where the pixels are big enough to see. I know that these image processing instructions aren't really specific enough because they will vary with your design and your tool of choice, but you get the idea: make digital image of the resolution of your quilt top, edit pixels to make a pattern.
Once you've got the pattern, choose colors and cut pixel squares, then begin the process of sewing them together, remembering to use a divide and conquer construction strategy. First pick a block size (10x10 shown below) then think about making 10 10x1 strips. To make each strip sew a 5 2x1 pairs, then one 4x1 and one 6x1, then sew those halves together to complete the 10x1 strip. Once you've got rows created use the same technique to join the second dimension. Once you've got 10x10 blocks, sew them together into rows using the same technique again.
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