Project: Carpenter's Square

 Just Finished!

This is one of those patterns that can play with the eye. The many squares within the largest square visually accentuates the overall diagonals, as if to make an "X" in the block. In this "on point" setting, there is the illusion of a horizontal/vertical grid. So, if you look for those axes, the eye groups the squares differently and another pattern emerges.   

I ran across this pattern in The American Quilt Story by Susan Jenkins & Linda Seward. The example they showed was quilted in the late 1800's, but it struck me as remarkably modern.

This is the traditional setting for Carpenter's Square

What is really cool is that Carpenter's Square has a very different look depending on the orientation of the blocks. 

These are two options I considered before deciding to rotate the setting to put the blocks on point. Both of these versions preserved the traditional square gridding, while rotating the blocks. On the right there is a strong diagonal across the quilt top which results from placing the small "block within the block" toward the top left or bottom right corners. The option on the left connects four blocks by pulling those small squares to the center of a group of four blocks. In my final version, I emphasized that effect by widening the space between the groups of four.  

And on the back there are three squares in the reverse of the color scheme. 

To be honest, this is probably the most modern part of the quilt.