100 Days of Wordle: The Planning Process

I’ve always had trouble following “100 Day Project” challenges. You know, the ones where every day for 100 days, you do a thing. It could be making a few stitches. It could be making one quilt block. It could be something unrelated to quilting at all.

I’m not sure why, but I always lose momentum around day 30 or so. Or I make all 100 items within a week. I know this isn’t the point - the whole idea behind a 100 day project is to practice doing a thing for multiple days in a row. But I tend to sew every day anyway, so maybe I’m not the ideal candidate for a 100 day project in the first place.

But I still want to join in on the fun.

Around the time Wordle was starting to become really popular, Kerry Goulder (@kidgiddy on Instagram) posted about an idea of making a Wordle quilt block. I though this was an intriguing idea, and I wondered if this might work as a 100 days project for me. I knew I would play enough times to generate data for 100 blocks. The puzzle resets only once a day, so it wouldn’t be possible for me to rush ahead. And I could save all the completed puzzles as screenshots, storing the guide for my blocks, then do my usual “make them all at once in a few large batches”.

I knew I needed to work within parameters. In my opinion, the key to successful quilt design is setting parameters (rules, boundaries, constraints) - especially if you’re working scrappy, which I usually am. The parameters ensure that your quilt blocks will work together visually, even if there is a lot of variation.

First off, the size. It helped that each quilt block would be a series of squares - that’s pretty straightforward. But I didn’t want the finished quilt to be large. And 100 blocks for 100 days would mean that unless the individual squares were very small, the quilt would finish at throw size at least. I like the compact look of the game itself, so I wanted to recreate the tiny squares. I determined that the finished size of each little square within the block would be 0.5”.

Next, the color scheme. I had no intention of this quilt looking like a celebration of the Green Bay Packers. The green and yellow had to be changed.

I tend to lean toward blues anyway, so I decided to go in that direction. My initial inspiration was this quilt I saw at QuiltCon 2022 in Phoenix, AZ, titled “Flown Away Geese”. It was made by Irina Timofeeva and placed third in Modern Traditionalism (way to go Irina!). I loved the gradient of blues, and the way the quilt looks like it’s glowing. This was my starting point.

In order to get this effect, I knew I needed to have a gradient of blues, growing lighter in value as they ascended, over a very dark blue background. I happened to have a fat quarter bundle of batiks that fit into the color range I was looking for, so I made a test block out of that.

I loved what was happening, but immediately found problems. For starters, I had nowhere near enough fabric to make all the blocks I needed, and didn’t know where to buy more of this specific fabric. Also, I loved the scrappy look going on, but the repetition of the same fabric next to itself made no sense. You don’t want to put a seam between two of the same fabrics if you can help it - you’re only adding bulk and wasting fabric. The directionality meant that some pieces looked accidentally rotated, though it was purposeful to differentiate between squares.

But more than all of that, there wasn’t enough of a gradient. I only had three different fabrics. I wanted to differentiate between the lines. So I changed it up a little.

I liked this much better, but I still had the problem of putting the same fabric next to itself. And I still wasn’t going to have enough of the batiks to make the whole quilt.

At this point, I decided to challenge myself by using solids.

I’m not sure why. I’m not a solids person. I see my friends ordering solid fabric off color cards and being all put together and coordinated. I find this super intimidating, so I tried to cope with this feeling by pretending that I have my situation put together too.

I ordered a Moda fabrics color card. It was almost as tall as I am. (I’m 6’0”)

I quickly found that I couldn’t compare different fabrics next to each other as they were on the card. So I cut it up and made little sample pieces that I could move around.

I chose some that I thought would work for my gradient, and one mustard color (saffron), because I’m trying to grow in my color choices. I ordered them, and waited. Like a grown-up.

When the fabrics finally arrived, I jumped in right away. I didn’t separate squares of the same color on the same line, planning to make the illusion of the separated tiny squares in the quilting when all was done. I left out the saffron because I wasn’t brave enough to put it in.

I made four blocks, then took a step back and was immediately disappointed.

The result was… lackluster. It had no soul in it, no life.

I tried again, using the saffron this time to represent the yellow guesses in the Wordle game.

Blech.

Maybe the problem was the background. I made one block with a light background to see if I liked it better. I did not.

I looked at all the blocks I had made, thoroughly disappointed in all of them.

The scrappy one at the beginning was the closest to how I wanted the quilt to look.

Back to scrappy, then. Hello, comfort zone.

All of the issues I was having could be solved with more planning.

The Wordle game is a 5x6 grid. I wanted to keep this same format, with no sashing - but I want there to be background space between the solved letter squares. So I’m only using puzzles that I solved on the 5th try (or fewer).

I used a variety of fabric scraps for each color category, and didn’t put two of the same fabrics next to each other.

Success! I was really happy with the way this was going, and bonus - I wouldn’t have to buy any fabric.

It’s good to challenge your comfort zone once in a while, but also listen to your gut when it’s just not clicking.

I found it interesting to see how much smaller the block got when finished. Because the squares finish at 0.5”, most of the fabric ends up in the seam allowance.

This is it, this is the right direction for me. (Yay!) I was such a relief to find the right parameters, and now I could actually get started.

All this time, I’d been saving every solved puzzle in an album in my phone - so all the data was there. I could make a bunch of blocks using my new parameters.

After so much bumping around in the wrong direction, I was nervous that I might find another stopping point, but I didn’t.

I knew there wouldn’t really be an easy way to keep track of what order the puzzles were solved in, so I let go of that. The Wordle is really a starting point, a random block generator to make a quilt that I have no idea how it will finish out, but am excited to go along with the process.

It looks as if it’s going to end up with a glowy, cloudy effect. I completely love this direction.

I’ll come back later with an update, but this is what I have for now. And it’s a solid start to this quilt that I’ve been trying to puzzle out for months now.