Last week’s Sunday sketch included 10 versions of a single design, showing how much a pattern can vary by changing only the colour palette or placement. This week’s Sunday sketch continues on that theme using the same design. Here are 10 more variations!

Let’s start with a two-colour quilt design as a palate (palette!) cleanser 🙂

Just as a reminder of the shapes I’m working with in this design… there are ‘flower’ shapes (shown below in yellow) and the shapes created at their intersections (shown in pink). Both types of shapes have a star in their centre.

Even working with just two colours, there are plenty of ways to vary the design.

The basic versions of the design often let secondary shapes emerge… which I’ve highlighted below in pink. Can you see them in the design above as well?

Or I can take all the shapes within those secondary ‘circles’, and use the reverse colourway (yellow on dark blue, rather than dark blue on yellow). This is a bit more psychedelic…

Back to the more regular pattern… I removed the centres of the stars (colouring them in using the colour of the star’s arms). Those secondary patterns are still clearly visible if you get your eye in.

And then I played more with the star shapes… alternating the level of detail…

…and the colour.

Regular readers know that I often prefer the symmetrical, two-colour versions of my designs. So this next version is one of my favourites. I love how the four corner stars poke out of the overall design.

And the secondary shapes are still there. Highlighted here in white, just for effect.

It’s funny how the feel of this design changes, too. Some of the versions feel quite ‘modern’ to me, while others seem much more ‘traditional’. I’ve often struggled to define ‘modern’ when it comes to quilting, and I don’t necessarily agree with some of the definitions out there. (Also, I’ve often thought about setting up two brands to sell the same quilt patterns… one brand to sell the ‘traditional’ version, and the other to sell the ‘modern’ version. I’d love to know the overlap between those two customer bases!)

Anyway, I digress.

Like Sunday sketch #238, this design is just two blocks alternating in an 11 x 11 grid. One block is two half-circles facing each other; the other is an arrangement of 4 kite blocks. The only difference between all these versions is the colours – what they are, and where they go. And I have a million more variations on this design… well, maybe not a million, but certainly another 30 or 40 (at least). The possibilities are almost endless!