Deborah R. Fowler
Quilts - mathematical relationships and more
Posted June 25 2019
I recently came across this framed quilt in the Tucson Museum of Art. I thought it would be fun to try in Houdini and discovered both its mathematical principles as well as its organic structure that adds fascination.
The quilt in the picture below is by Carrie Marill and is titled "Sunburst Quilt" 2007.
The key to the solution is to break it down to one modular piece, since it is an octagon 360/8 = 45 degrees.
Copying this piece and fusing the points to reduce redundancy we get the image below. (copy the single piece 8 times at 45 degrees). To more closely resemble the original, using four clip nodes.
If you prefer not to use copy stamp nodes, this can be easily implemented using point wrangle nodes:
Either method will work:
However I was disappointed at the very rigidly perfect result as compared with the original artwork. I began searching further into this pattern and found that it was originally created circa 1830s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Scattergood_Savery
The one pictured on the website above as well as one on google search (unattributed pinterest)
do not have the same amount of stretching and are closer to the mathematically accurate version produced above.
However, to get closer to the original, which I assume has a more organic form due to the linen stretching or other structural imperfections that are appealing, I took my existing pattern and textured a grid that could be manipulated more easily.
And since we are in Houdini, fun to try spinning these (not likely something done with quilts)
In addition to the sunburst pattern, there are many other patterns that are use in quilting.
Here are a few that are titled as follows: blocks, dutchman, flying geese and bow ties.
