What Is This Called? Quilt Patterns, Drawing, and Zentangle(tm)

A few weeks ago, I was browsing through images of Zentangle-inspired art and it occurred to me that here was a way to combine two things I like: interesting quilt block patterns, and tangle patterns. (Zentangle™ is basically a form of doodling using patterns that are broken down stroke by stroke so they can be comfortably learned and produced. It can also be a kind of meditative practice.)

I love quilts and quilting, but I haven’t made many because they are (for me) a big time commitment. I have a file full of quilt patterns that I would love to make some day. Now, nothing replaces actual fabric and thread, but perhaps in addition to working on a small number of these patterns in fabric, I could work on a larger number of them on paper. I wouldn’t be able to curl up under the results, but I could put them on the wall and look at them. After all, plenty of quilts end up as wall hangings, too—there are only so many beds in one house.

So I pulled out the file and selected a pattern I’ve very much wanted to use—Storm At Sea. I love the way the straight lines of the triangles and diamonds end up giving the illusion of curves, not to mention the effects possible through different choices of fabric colors. I made a slightly simplified outline and started filling in the spaces with colored pen and filler patterns.

I didn’t get very far before my frozen right shoulder let me know that I would pay for this activity. 

I should explain. I’m talking about adhesive capsulitis, which sometimes occurs for no apparent reason. My left shoulder was the first one to start freezing, back in July or even earlier. After getting quite painful, it moved from the “freezing” to the “frozen” stage and stopped hurting. That was in December. It is now, I hope, moving into the “thawing” stage, though I can’t be sure since it has only regained a tiny bit of its former range of motion so far. 

When one shoulder freezes, there is an increased chance that the other one will also be affected. The right shoulder started to freeze just as the left one stopped hurting, and I think it has probably reached the point of maximum pain and minimum movement about now. I’m hoping it will move on to the next stage before the month is out, but in the meantime, activities like drawing, writing longhand, as well as anything that involves repeated reaching (wiping counters, unloading dishes, etc), is liable to make my entire arm hurt. Filling in an entire quilt design with detailed patterns is out for now.

So I didn’t get far on my Storm At Sea design.

Well, at least I could look at images of designs that other people had done, right? Except… what is this kind of thing called? I started typing words into Google, trying to find out.

I tried “zentangle quilts”, and found actual fabric quilts made of black-and-white prints in patterns resembling Zentangle tiles. I moved to “zen quilt” and discovered a book called Zen Quilting, which deals with using tangle-type patterns in free-motion quilting on fabric. “Paper quilts” gave me collages of patterned paper cut into shapes and pasted down in imitation of traditional quilt block designs.

I tried other combinations of words, but could not find the magic phrase. I’m certain these pictures are out there. Quilting and Zentangle have much in common, and I can’t be the first person to think of using a quilt outline as a “string” (lines outlining the spaces to be filled in).

So what is this called? What is the word for using traditional quilt block designs but drawing them on paper and filling in the spaces with doodles or Zentangle-inspired patterns?

Anyone? Please?

Till next post.