Emma Laughton

Emma Laughton

Patchwork quilt wall hanging

Cotton fabrics

The quilt is a wall hanging whose design is composed entirely of the new ‘hat’ einstein shape discovered last year by Dave Smith. This is the first example of a unique shape able to tile a plane aperiodically.

I’ve always been interested in pattern and geometric design, which until recently has always been periodic. However I was excited when the hat shape became known last year, creating opportunities that looked fundamentally different.

The quilted patchwork wall hanging shows a tessellation of hats which are all hand sewn by the English paper piecing method. The patchwork consists of approximately 1200 ‘mitre’-shaped individual pieces. Each mitre shape is a third of the area of a regular hexagon with sides 2cm, and each of the 300 hats is composed of four of these pieces. The colours I’ve included are shades of red, blue, yellow and green using 33 different cotton fabrics. The colours are largely allocated according to the underlying structure of supertiles, however there is an energetic burst of yellow and red near the centre; while four large triangular areas and a border are gently suggested by the use of different blues and yellows. The design aims to please the eye with a combination of elements of repetition and apparent (near) symmetry, contrasting with the unpredictable overall aperiodicity.

I am a retired art gallery owner and church administrator. I’ve been making hand-sewn patchworks for many years.

emma@dolphinhousegallery.co.uk

@emma_laughton1