Diamond Organization

Except for one diamond, all of the diamonds for Fabric of the Year 2010 are cut, bar one. I am now in the stage where I have to make sure that I have enough border patches. I also needed to figure out what the arrangement of the diamonds would be.

Counting Diamonds
Counting Diamonds

My first task was to count my diamonds. It was fun to go through the patches and see all of the fabrics I cut. I weeded out a few duplicates and came up with 330 diamonds.

Next, I needed to figure out the layout of the diamonds. I thought I could figure that puzzle out by doing some division, but, as it turns out, diamonds are whole different animal. The rows are not right next to each other. There are, as I see it two rows for each segment. The inside row (eg if you think of the bottom most row of the quilt, one row up is the inside row) is one diamond smaller than the bottom row and so it goes up the entire quilt. One row is, for example, 10 diamonds across. The next row up is 9 diamonds across. One row up from that is, again, 10 diamonds across and so it goes up the entire quilt. This means that you can’t just assume that to make a quilt of 330 diamonds could be designed by taking the square root of 330 (18×18=324), which you could do if the patches were square or rectangular.

When I realized this, I had to get my resident math genius involved. DH began working on the problem and realized the difficulty of the math.

Two Last Diamonds
Two Last Diamonds

DH ended up making a rectangle or square out of  the diamonds (imagine a rectangle drawn around the two diamonds above) and worked out the problem that way. After a few hours, it occurred to me that EQ7 might have a solution. It has elaborate explanations on how they count diamonds.

Math & Diamonds
Math & Diamonds

As DH came up with different arrangements, I tried them out in EQ7. We still had to count the two rows of diamonds and then multiply to be sure that we would use the most number of diamonds cut. There was no way, in EQ7, to put in the number of diamonds and then have the program determine the arrangement. That would be a great feature.

20x9 Diamonds
20x9 Diamonds

Eventually, we figured out the arrangement: 20 diamonds across by 9 diamonds down. The above is from EQ7 and the coloration was just a quick way of making the layout stand out a bit. It seems like a bit of an odd shape, but I have to remind myself that the diamonds are taller than they are wide and, thus, it appears that the arrangement will work.

My next step is to cut one last diamond, because for this arrangement I need 332 diamonds. I am planning to use the Metro coffee fabric from Monaluna. I did buy that fabric last year, so it fits with the theme. I am not sure what I was planning to make with this fabric, but after spending another 1.25 days making a back for a quilt I just finished (just the top and the back; I haven’t done the quilting), I am sick of pieced backs. I am still going to make them, because I see no point in not using fabric I already have, but it is so much easier to use larger pieces of fabric. To give myself a break, I am planning to use a large piece of the Monaluna fabric on the back of FOTY 2010, thus I want to include a diamond from that print. Before I cut the diamond, I decided to make a Jane Market tote from that fabric.

I cut a bunch of border triangles and I need to count those to see if I need to cut more. I need 38 top and bottom triangles total. I need 16 side triangles total. I am good on the corner triangles, though I did find them a little hard to cut. The Fast2Cut corner ruler did make it easier.

Diamond Test Piece
Diamond Test Piece

I still haven’t finished the test piece. I started it, but haven’t been using my sewing time well lately, so I am behind.

Finally, I will arrange the patches at the retreat.