As long as I can remember, I have heard the design guideline that the eye is drawn more to odd numbers of things than to even numbers. Somehow the even numbers looks like it is missing something to make it symmetrical. I didn’t realize how much this had applied to my quilting too, until recently.

A few years ago, a pattern called St. Louis Sixteen Patch by sewfreshquilts (you can google it to find the tutorial) was popular on InstaGram, and as indicated by the title, the block is a 4 x 4 layout of squares. I made it with a stack of fat quarters and ended up with a quilt big enough for my bed, so that is where it resides.

A group of friends came over to sew last weekend, and one of them noticed the quilt and said that she’s starting to look more and more at blocks with an even layout instead of odd, and it got me to thinking.

I have always tended to favor blocks with an odd layout – a 9 patch, and a carpenter star are two good examples. They are symmetrical no matter which way they end up in the quilt, and they make some nice secondary designs. When it comes to the actual quilt, I have always used an odd layout because it makes the quilt feel finished somehow. Now I’m finding myself playing more and more with variations of a 4 patch: the sixteen patch, a double 4 patch, and pinwheel blocks to name a few. It changes the look of the finished quilt, but I like the designs so I’m going to keep exploring this.

What are the blocks you are playing with now? Do you favor an odd layout vs an even layout?