I promised I’d post pix of some of my Horrors^TM. Here’s the first: North Truro – my bulletproof cotton counterpane.

I’m fascinated by the way pieced quilting is composed. In it, thegeometric shapesbuild increasingly more visually complex units by the way they interact either in color, texture or line. Knitted counterpanes by contrast rarely offer that sort of interplay. Usually they’re made up of all one shape. Sometimes two, but rarely more. I wanted to build something that used several units, and in which the design built upon itself unit by unit. In this case, I’ve combined a hex, a patterned square, a patterned triangle, and a plain triangle to make a larger repeat. All of these units are my own design (I’ve highlighted the units so you can spot them):

I reallylike the way the squares and triangles extend the hex, making larger compass roses. I like the way the lines of eyelets draw the eye from rose to rose. Interestingly enough, this layout isn’t the only one possible. The swirl hexes can be used alone, and the compass rose unit can be arranged in one of several ways (the last one is layout shown above):

The name? North Truro, Cape Cod, Massachusettsis where we vacation each summer, and is one of my all-time favorite places. This piece was composed and knit on the beach. Also the compass rose design resonates with that town’sseafaring heritage.

Sadly this project languishes only because of Bad Yarn Choice. The DK-weight yarn I used is too heavy. The central swirl-star hex measures 9 inches across. The compass rose unit measures about 16 inches across. When I do this again I’ll do it up in sport or lighter (on smaller needles of course). Eventually I’llinvent a companion half-hex and border. I do however have all the units pictured above graphed up already, and do have enough done to illustrate the concept. If people are interested, I’ll consider posting what I’ve got so far to the free patterns page at wiseNeedle. Unless of course some well-heeledpattern publisher wishes to offer me oodles of cash to finish it up. Since the chance of that happening is slightly less than zero, you can count of seeing it on wiseNeedle sometime soon.