Kali Geometric Pattern Generator: Redux

May 02, 2009 11 Replies
D

In the thread I started a while ago about color palettes, the subject of the title came up, and since I also have an interest in tessellation designs, I looked up the original thread Jack started back in January, looked up the rest of the designs he posted, and downloaded the generator myself (which I haven't yet had time to play with).



Anyway, I solved all of the Kali patterns Jack created that can be produced on a square/rectangular quilt block (except one - KaliBorderedOctagon - I can solve it, but due to the extremely small size of some of the polygons, I think it would be impractical to piece & assemble as a block as designed. It could however be pieced as a one-block quilt.)



The hexagonal/triagonal designs present another problem. I can solve them by hand; unfortunately EQ6 has no hexagonal block design capability (yet - another hint to the programmers. It'd be extremely kewl to be able to do hexagonal quilt blocks in either horizontal or vertical orientation...) There is a trick I know to simulate hexagonal blocks using offset rectangular blocks, but it's going to take me a while of experimenting to see if I can use that trick on the Kali hexagonal designs.



If anyone is interested in some elegant solutions to the Kali blocks, drop me a line; I can convert them (and quilt-samples) to jpegs for emailing. I have no interest in using them for any quilt designs of my own; I just did it to learn from them, and I think I learned quite a bit...



Doc Smith


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M

I'm curious to know exactly what a "Kali hexagonal" is? My EQ6 has the ability for hexagon quilt designs, either in vertical or horizontal orientations.... And octagons too.... May I see some of your pictures? Curious minds need to know Mickie

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S

As far as I can see you can do an EQ quilt with hexagonal pieces in it - Grandmother's Flower Garden, but you cannot do an individual hexagonal block. In fact you can only do individual blocks in rectangles. In EQ5 there is actually a lesson on GFG, colouring straight onto the whole quilt and EQ6 is pretty much the same.

I have just started Quilted Diamonds (60 degree angle) and have the EQ CD to print out/colour/change design of the blocks. However the diamonds are all shown with triangular pieces to make them into rectangles so you can't just pop the indivdual diamond blocks into a diamond divided quilt

- you have to have the side bits (which I am not using!) too.

I agree - it would be nice to be able to design correctly shaped individual blocks to fit in the quilts provided. When it comes to the final quilt design it will be a combination of design wall/colouring in the whole quilt with main colour impression of each block and lots of fingers and toes crossed!

Sally at the Seaside~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~uk

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Mickie Swall wrote:

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D

Hi Mickie,

By "Kali hexagonal", I meant any design created in Kali that is based on a hexagon rather than a rectangle. Examples are any of Jack's original design's that included "hex" in their titles/filenames plus a few others.

EQ6 has the ability to design quilts with single-color/fabric hexagonal patches (one-patch layouts), however there is no facility for designing hexagonal (or octagonal) blocks. I've been trying to "fake it" by specifying proportional "snaps" within a square block, but the square root of 3 (proportional multiplier for the long leg of a 30=B0 - 60=B0 right triangle) doesn't really go into anything (useable as a block size) close enough to evenly to work. (If anyone has found such a "fudge factor" that works. PLEASE let me know! :-)

Doc Smith

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M

There should be a work-around in EQ, I will know better after I've seen the pictures. Mickie

Hi Mickie,

By "Kali hexagonal", I meant any design created in Kali that is based on a hexagon rather than a rectangle. Examples are any of Jack's original design's that included "hex" in their titles/filenames plus a few others.

EQ6 has the ability to design quilts with single-color/fabric hexagonal patches (one-patch layouts), however there is no facility for designing hexagonal (or octagonal) blocks. I've been trying to "fake it" by specifying proportional "snaps" within a square block, but the square root of 3 (proportional multiplier for the long leg of a 30° - 60° right triangle) doesn't really go into anything (useable as a block size) close enough to evenly to work. (If anyone has found such a "fudge factor" that works. PLEASE let me know! :-)

Doc Smith

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P

I didn't use a "fudge factor", I just worked out the odd-shaped multiple-piece-tessellating units for them. But, I wasn't using any EQ; and, as you know, I don't want to >ggHi Mickie,

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J

They are all images I got by tinkering around with the Kali symmetric pattern generator program (on the Mac, but it's available for other systems, I think). I posted about them a few months ago. Interesting as ways to get regular designs with unsquare blocks. I didn't colour them in, as they had lots of alternative possibilities, so I left them as outline drawings:

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The bordered octagons one is obviously impossible as patchwork but could make a useful quilting pattern. Ditto some of the others, which look complicated but are really just a collection of zigzags around straight lines right across the design.

We have a top pieced that uses the 2Squares design in a rather sneaky way. I'll post a photo when we finish it. 2Squares looks like such an obvious idea you'd think it would have been in use for a couple of hundred years, but I've never seen a quilt that uses it.

==== j a c k at c a m p i n . m e . u k === ==== Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739 557 CD-ROMs and free stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts

****** I killfile Google posts - email me if you want to be whitelisted ******
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D

Hi Jack et al,

I downloaded the Kali program for Windows, and while playing around with it showed DW. She got very excited about it, whipped out "Designing Tessellations" by Jinny Beyer, and showed me all the ways the program related to the book.

Since I *was* using EQ, I didn't/couldn't spend a lot of time on the hexagonals... :-( These are the sketches I did solve to their most elemental quilt blocks:

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as some of the designs were very similar to the above,their solutions would likewise be very similar, so I skipped those.

I agree. I'm not so sure I *haven't* seen it someplace, but since I can't recall off the TOMH...

Anyhow... Thanks again Jack, for introducing me to the Kali pgm, your sketches, etc.

Doc Smith

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P

Oh Boy! Now I really feel like a series must be done. I have worked out most of these; but love a few of the new ones too. I won't even try Bordered Octagons! nor Sawtooth. Maybe some of the others are not possible. I have some fabric I have been wanting to use, but is so far unassigned. I will find some other pieces to go with them and will slot them into my 2009 'to do' list. Congratulations Jack; these are splendid pieces of construction. Thanks so much for setting out the whole list. I have saved them now! . In message , Jack Campin

- bogus address writes

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D

Hi Patti,

Since they were drawn with Kali, which is based on the precepts of tessellations from Jinny Beyer's book (and elsewhere), they HAVE to be possible; *practical* as with BorderedOctagons is another story... ;-) Sawtooth actually doesn't look all that difficult to me; we'll just not get into any more hand vs. machine debates ;-)

Once again, for those interested, you can download the Kali program (Windows or Mac) at:

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more info. can be found at:
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If you get something out of it, please be sure to thank the author by way of sending him a few bucks; IMO he deserves it.

Doc Smith

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D

...Except for Patti - she has to do them by hand! 8^P

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P

So true >gg<

But that's my most favourite part - no hassle at all! . In message , snipped-for-privacy@rochester.rr.com writes

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