Squircles

Maybe. Maybe Victor Vasarely got there first in the art world, but I’m guessing the origin of circles on squares, or even squircles on squares, may have come from all the mending the first woman did on her children’s clothes. Just a hunch. I really have no way of knowing this, but when my friend Dot mentioned the artist Vasarely as being reminiscent of our #backtosquircles project, I believe she was on to something. Have fun looking at his art.

My Tips and Tricks

Caveat: If you would rather fold laundry or scrub out the bathroom than do hand appliqué, I have a post on how to do nearly invisible appliqué on machine, using monofilament thread. It’s quick! It’s easy!

Back to the method I used *this time.* (I might change it next time.)

To cut out the shape: I would often iron on my freezer paper version of the pattern (I just printed it directly from the pattern). Other times I would just use a pin. Always I used my rotary cutter to slice around the fabric, and usually I was working with four layers of one polkadot fabric. (I learned in this project how many many many polkadot fabrics I have.)

In my past appliqué lives I have always cut out a bunch of the shapes out of freezer paper and pressed the fabric onto that. I would place shiny side up, and nudge the edges onto the shiny stuff and they would generally stick. When it was cool, I would take the pattern out and use it again.

This time I tried Old School Methods: spray some spray starch into the lid, and using a small brush, stroke it around.

Like this.

You can just see where it’s damp from the starch. Don’t use too much. I always lay down a piece of cloth on my ironing board to catch the dribbles.

Place a template (here I used mylar and punched holes in it — more on that later), pressing the corners and sides up over the template. The starch should dry and hold it in place. Let it cool, then remove the template. Duh.

I finger press some marks at the centers.

Then I arrange the cooled, pressed squircle by eye and pin it down. Sorry if this is repetitive for you experts — feel free to leave a comment if you have more tips; this is always helpful!

Sometimes you’ll get a little bump out. That just means underneath the seam allowance has its knickers in a twist. As you stitch along to this spot, with your needle, sweep the seam allowance away from the bump (in the directions of the arrows) and it should ease up and smooth out.

Sometimes I just put four pins.

Other times that squircle isn’t going anywhere.

I use the Thread Conditioner from Riley Acres, and I like the Super Bobs Bright Thread Collection. Rachel uses her own bees’ beeswax to make the conditioner, and I like how it feels, and it never gets hard.

I’ve sort of started evaluating my polkadots for this project. The ones on the left are rejects. The ones in the middle I was thinking about, but in the end, I only used the ones on the right: regularish-shaped dots, with not too much else going on.

Twenty-two done. I’m ahead of schedule, happily.

I made you a chart to keep track of our squircles. I added it to the pattern, and tweaked the pattern a bit, if you want to download it again:

Squircle_OPQuilt Download

Okay, that’s it for my squircle tips and tricks.

The mylar sheets can be found on the Great Store in the Sky, and I just slipped the pattern underneath and traced it off with a fine Sharpie marker. The Mylar cut easily with scissors. I punch holes in my Mylar so the steam doesn’t build up and warp the template. Although with the starch, I didn’t use steam this go round.

This little project will sink into the background for a while, so I promise, no more squircles posts for a while. But the pattern (free!) and the tips and tricks will stay here on the website for your use.

keyword search term on this site: squircles
hashtag on Instagram: #backtosquircles

I could listen to Rose talk about her job in the hardware store every day.

You knew this was coming, right? After you saw that last post about squircles, I’ll bet you knew I’d go hunting and fall down a rabbit hole. You are very perceptive.

This is a squircle grapefruit from designer Tai Tan. I found it on Dribble, which is also a website I didn’t know about before.

A squircle is not a rounded square, apparently. There is some design technique that can explain it, and it has to do with the flat edges. In a rounded square there are flat edges. In a squircle, they may LOOK flat, but they are every-so-slightly rounded (from here).
John Uttley also has a nice grid of squircles to admire, and here’s more to see if you want.

Lisa, my quilty friend in the previous post, was as happy as I was with these quilts, so we thought we cook up a project. It went like this:
1st idea: make blocks and swap
2nd idea: swap backgrounds but still do your own appliqué
3rd idea: set up a challenge to do *so many* each month, and check in with each other.

Third time’s the charm. We’re doing a Squircle Challenge. So I went looking and besides the designers, I found some quilters:

Marla Varner’s blog, Penny Lane, feels like the OG.

I did an image search and was able to source this image to Zippy Quilts, my friend Mary’s blog. This quilt alternated squares on squares, and squircles on squares. It was made by Carolyn Brown.

This is from the Instagram feed of laurispringer.

Last quilt I found was from Amanda Jean Nyberg’s website, and she calls it “dot your i’s quilt.” This is different because of the low-value backgrounds.

So here’s the story. I started the PatternLite with using a 5″ block (5 1/2″ with seam allowance) and that’s the first one in the pattern. But then in my stash box, way in the back of the closet, I found a stack of Charm Squares in Painter’s Palette Solids, my favorite brand. The 4″ squircle just looked too crowded.

So I redrew the squircle, to be more squircle-y, with slightly rounded sides. Then I resized it to fit — making it a 3 1/2″ (finished) size. That seemed to fit the backgrounds much better. So you have two sizes and two shapes in the free pattern.

I spotted my purple/lime green polka dot fabric at the top of this photo of Machelle Preston’s quilt, in the current Springville Quilt Show (see previous post).

I have been ~~hoarding~~ collecting polka dots for years now. This is why: Come A-Round, from earlier in my making (Quilt #90).

However…I noticed that I seem to have plenty more dotty fabrics, so why not use them again, borrowing Machelle’s idea?

So here are the first three, courtesy of one of those sleepless nights that come along once in a while (if you haven’t seen Melanie, you are missing out). Now I just have about 177 more to go, but don’t worry, in the pattern there are two sizes (the 5-inch requires fewer blocks), and a helpful chart so you don’t panic. Just tote this project around to doctor’s offices, pick it up while watching TV, or while you are hiding from your family in a quiet room.

Because we dreamed this collaboration up in August, and everyone’s going back to school, that’s our theme. Our hashtag is #backtosquircle, a play on Back To School. We have an easy schedule, for who needs more pressure in their lives? The drill:

choose your block size/quilt size
make a bunch
every 20 blocks made, post it up on Instagram with our hashtag #backtosquircle (if you use that social)
take it slowly!