T he miniature Scissors Quilt you see here uses a pattern that I created from a museum quilt which is in the collection at the Sherbourne Museum. I have never seen a quilt use this particular configuration of triangles and rectangles anywhere else. The basic block is built in such a way that you cannot see the image of the scissors until you have added adjacent blocks. The two basic shapes are a square containing an isosceles triangle and a rectangle half as wide as the square and just as long. You can make the basic blocks small as in the one pictured here, or larger for a full size quilt. You can see more of the detail of the units in this larger JPEG image (34K).

In this diagram, I have floated the basic block slightly above the rest of the quilt, so you can see how it is assembled.

This quilt uses two-inch squares and rectangles 1 by 2 inches. I chose high contrast fabrics in blacks, navies and whites. Most of the fabrics are Japanese cottons. During construction, I randomly added strips of reds to some of the small units as they were assembled. It added some motion, and relief from the starkness of the geometry.

The quilt was made using paper foundation piecing. I added batting as they were assembled, since the patches were large enough to accommodate the extra thickness. The whole design is accomplished with just nine of the basic blocks, each composed of ten of the smaller units. The central design is surrounded by a white border 1 inch wide, then a Sawtooth border 3/4-in wide, then a black print border. The work is mounted on a stretcher over a padding of quilt batting, measures 26"X26", and contains 582 pieces.