tessellating? tesselation?

Tesse comes from the Latin form for tiling, as in mosaic. Mathematically it's like angles forming a whole.......if you're a quilter it's a like shape interlocking, sort of like a jigsaw puzzle.

Visual aids are better than words ;)

Here's a picture of a tessellated leaf patterned quilt....

It means covering a surface with lots of copies of a few shapes. Also known as "tiling". A good basic intro in pictures:

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Tessellation means "tiling", basically using one shape over and over in a way that doesn't leave empty spaces. Hexagons tessellate. So do squares and triangles, apple-core shapes, jigsaw-puzzle pieces, plus sign shapes, and M.C. Escher's lizards. Five-sided pieces don't tessellate, and neither do circles. Jinny Beyer's book _Designing Tessellations_ is really neat for people like me who like both mathematics and quilting.

Louise, in Kingston Ontario

The inestimable Jinny Beyer has a wonderful book on tesselation and defines a "tile" as a single unit that can be repeated with no breaks across a flat surface. So a square or diamond shape would work, for example. The book shows how she designs tesselating shapes, including print designs for fabric. Fun to read! Roberta in D

"~KK in BC~" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:c0myi.3130$vP5.105@edtnps90...