Do You See How Much I {Heart} Quatrefoil?

I was looking at someone's blog yesterday (I'm sorry whoever you are, I clicked on you through a blog, through another blog so I can't remember how I got to you to thank you for the idea, but if I ever find you again I'll make sure to update my post) and saw that her background was quatrefoil.  I just posted about {heart}ing it the other day, so I was super excited. 

Then I thought to myself How much do I really {heart} quatrefoil if I don't even have it in my blog design?  I made a decision.  I HAD to have a quatrefoil background.  I still wanted it to be in my current color scheme, so It's not like I could just find a quatrefoil pattern online somewhere and use that.  I'd have to make my own. 

WARNING: It was a really tedious process since the only artsy program I had available was Microsoft Publisher.  I'll show you how I did it, but you might want to come up with an easier way if you do it yourself.   

I started out by making a circle, then I copied it three times and put the circles together like this:

Now I had the basic shape I needed, but what about the outline?  I copied the shape, chose a lighter color and then enlarged it a little, so it looked like this:

Next I copied the entire shape and lined it up next to the original like this:

And then I copied them again:

And again, and again, and again.  Finally I added a square in the background that was the same color as my original circles and voila! Quatrefoil:

 This would have been the end point for most people, but I wanted a more delicate quatrefoil.  So I just kept copying bigger and bigger chunks of pattern until I finally settled with this:

To be honest, I would have made the pattern even small, but copying all those circles a million times really bogged down my computer.  So what do you think?  Do you {heart} it as much as I do?  Do you know of a better way I could have done it?  Let me know if there's a program online that would have made my life easier... 

I {Heart} Quatrefoil

I'm slightly obsessed with quatrefoil.  It's got everything I'm looking for in a pattern.  It's classic, yet modern.  It's curvy, yet structured.  It's formal, yet laid back.  I can't think of a single circumstance where quatrefoil wouldn't be appropriate.

Over the weekend we stopped at the Fred Meyer Red Tag Store.  Are Red Tag stores everywhere else?  I don't know.  But we have one here.  The Red Tag store is where they send all the clearance stuff from the normal stores.  Minus the food.  I imagine they send the clearance food to the dumpster. It's kind of like the Nordstrom Rack of general merchandise.  But I digress.  While we were there I saw some hand towels that reminded me of quatrefoil.  But the pattern was a little off.  Apparently it was from their Moroccan line that I never saw offered in their actual stores.  They were pretty much this pattern: 

Which is a beautiful fabric made by Kravet.  But the colors on the towels were a bit off.  Not that I have the color scheme figured out for my guest bath, but I didn't think the towels were in the colors I would pick.  I almost bought them anyway because of the quatrefoilyness (I know that's totally not a word, but when there's not an existing word sometimes you have to make your own), but I decided to hold out for the real thing.

While I'm waiting to find the perfect quatrefoil bath towels, I think I'll find a way to use this quatrefoil stencil that Jen from tatertots & jello made last year.  She used it to make the most adorable stool that makes me wish I had a step stool that needed some love. 

Check out her full tutorial at The CSI Project.  And stay tuned to see what I decide needs a quatrefoil treatment.