Planning & Plotting a Rag Denim Quilt

Video Transcript

"In this step, we actually plot the quilt out on graph paper. This helps to give us a vision as we are putting the pieces together and we always can see what the pattern will be like. To begin with, Linda is going to start lettering across the top. So our columns, our up and down rolls, will have letters A, B, C and so forth. We are doing 15 columns or rows so she will go all the way to the letter O. As you can see, Linda has used two squares per letter. Because bricks, of course, are wider than they are long, we wanted to have the same effect on the graph paper. As we plot downward, she is going to go to the next row below the A and start with a 1 and so forth down as far as 30 rows. And different from the rows going across, the ones going down will be only one square per number. We are now going to make a key for our graph here. Because as you know, we used four colors of denim in the quilt and we want to identify those four colors easily for us as we are plotting the pieces of quilt on the floor. So Linda is making a key. We are using this key to identify the four different colors of denim that we are using. A is represented by the darkest color of denim, B the light medium, C the lightest and D the dark medium. We are coloring in the darkest denim in purple. The light medium is a red color. The lightest is yellow. And the dark medium is a blue. This will be very helpful when we start to plot this out on the graph paper. We found when using a 15 brick width of the quilt that by repeating the four color pattern of the blue denim that we create a cascading effect of the denim bricks. So if you look at the quilt you will see a diagonal line. For instance, of the dark brick from all the way down from the left top corner down to the right bottom corner of the quilt. Now here is our finished graph design. As you can see, we started with the purple and we repeated that every fourth brick is a purple brick. Same with the yellow, every fourth yellow brick is a yellow brick. And because of that, you will see your diagonal lines forming."