using the book, PIECES: A YEAR IN POEMS AND QUILTS
Guess How Many?
Some of these are easy, but some are hard. How many can you answer?
Make a guess, then count, add, multiply and subtract to find out.
- How many quilts are in the book, including the cover?
- Did you know I cheated? I only made one quilt for “Nose Knows” and “Mirage”.
- Can you see what I did to trick you into thinking it is two quilts?
- How many different geometric shapes can you find in the book?
- Can you name them?
- Do you know a name that would include all the others?
- How many of the quilts use geometric shapes?
- How many don’t?
- How many quilts have at least one triangle?
- Which quilt has the most triangles?
- Can you figure out how many?
- Which of the quilts with at least one triangle has the fewest triangles?
- How many does it have?
- The Pieces quilt has lots of triangles and is very hard to count. You might want to print out the coloring page of this quilt.
- Still too hard? Cut the quilt into sections. Figure out the number of triangles in each section, then add them together. This might be a good project to do as a team.
- How many quilts are made mostly with squares?
- How many quilts are made only with squares?
- How many quilts have squares as part of the design, including the borders?
- How many have squares ONLY in the borders?
- Which quilt do you think has the most squares?
- Why do you think that?
- Are you counting the partial squares that you can see all around the edges of “To Each His Own”, “Nose Knows” and “Mirage”?
- I can think of two ways you could find out how many squares are in each quilt.
- Can you think of two ways? More than two?
- What would be the easiest way for you?
- How many squares in all do you think are in all twenty the quilts I made for this book?
- How many squares are inside the book?
- This is tricky because of the places where parts of quilts are used in the front and back pages. Also some of the borders are copied from the quilts. I didn’t make them, and don’t forget about the quilt that’s a cheat.* (Let’s just leave out the squares that show in the photographs at the end, shall we?)
- How many squares are on the cover?
- How many squares are in “Encore”?
- If I added another row all the way around how many squares would that be?
- If I added two rows all the way around how many would that be?
- Are there more squares or more rectangles in the book?
- Why?
- Are there more quadrangles or more rectangles?
- Why?
- Of the quilts that are NOT made with squares, which one do you think has the most pieces?
- Be careful.. Sometimes the quilting lines can make one piece look like more than one, and sometimes one fabric looks a lot like it's neighbor so it looks like one piece when it's two.
- Why did you choose that quilt?
- Do you think it has more or less pieces than the quilt with the least number of squares?
- Do you think it has more or less pieces than the quilt with the most squares?
- Which quilt do you think has the least number of pieces?
- Why did you chose that one?
- Can you estimate how many pieces of fabric are in all twenty quilts I made for this book?
- I’m going to include all the borders in my count. Can you see how some of the borders are made with 4 pieces of fabric—2 across the top and bottom and 2 on the sides? Some have 8 pices in the borders.
- Can you make up your own math problems about the quilts?
- PS: Maybe you could make up some problems and give them to your friends.
- PPS: Be sure you know the answers!
Want to know my answers?
Glossary of Quilting
A Bit of History
Quilts in the Classroom
Quilts, Dolls and Books
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Pieces
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