Escher Quilt

Once I started quilting, I really wanted to make a quilt for my husband. And before Christmas of course! As with many handmade holiday gifts, I didn’t finish in time. But he didn’t seem to mind unwrapping just a sketch and a single block along with the promise of a finished quilt. It was also much easier to work on the quilt after Christmas without having to keep it a surprise. I had seen an Escher-inspired quilt online that I thought my husband would like and I asked to buy the pattern, but the quilt shop would only sell the pattern as a fabric kit. So I purchased a pattern from a different designer (Krista Moser’s Entangled Sky) and tweaked the design using a new perspective and my own fabrics. I needed a special ruler AND this block uses something called partial seams, but Krista’s pattern made this all totally doable for a still-new quilter. The trick to getting the illusion I was after is to flip the pattern upside down. I printed off a very light grayscale coloring sheet of the pattern and filled in my own values. These are my notes in the off chance they help someone.

I made up a sample block for proof of concept:

I was using mostly jelly roll strips (I began this in 2020 after all), but they worked well for this pattern. After counting and recounting, I got everything cut and prepped:

And clipped into sets, ready to sew:

The pattern (and designer!) does a great job leading you through the construction of the blocks. She even has some Youtube videos for those seams. The hardest part is making sure all of your colors end up in the correct places!