I made so many versions of this week’s Sunday sketch that I don’t know which one to start with…! Usually I pick the one that feels the most ‘finished’ or that pleases me more than the others (for whatever reason). But this week I like a lot of them for different reasons.

I’ve been playing a bit with curves lately, and with block-based designs. Even though this looks like it’s two different blocks, it’s really just one block with a slight variation. Oh, and I’ve been making a bunch of designs lately with squarish curves like this (squircles?) – I love them! I’m surprised there aren’t more quilt patterns with these shapes. Maybe I need to remedy that….?

Anyway, let’s start with the three-colour version (black, white and that light khaki/mushroom-y colour). Here are a few of the possible permutations with those colours. (I kinda wish I hadn’t put a border on the second pic, but I’m too lazy to redo it without.)

This is a relatively uncomplicated design, and it looks great in just two colours too.

Ooh I think that second red/mushroomy one might be my favourite. Back to three colours… I like how the diagonal lines (of squares on point) can be more or less obvious depending on the colour choice and placement.

And now with four colours… Again, those diagonal lines seem prominent in this one.

I said before that the blocks were much the same, with one a slight variation (basically every second block is missing the curves). Here are a few versions with all the blocks the same. I added sashing because I didn’t like how crowded the design looked with all the curves bunched together.

It’s funny how the sashing kinda interrupts the flow of those diagonal lines and makes them kinda kinky. I notice that more in the version above than the one below.

And a few more versions in a calmer palette. The movement in the design, and the way the eye travels over the design, is quite different depending on the colour placement (for me, at least!).

And finally, one more tweak to the design. Instead of each block having a square on point in the centre, I coloured the design so it looks like there are notches – or, that the middle motif is more of a cross. I like this idea more in theory than in practice – I feel like it’s just a bit too busy now. Having said that, I do like the second version, because (again) those diagonals pop out nicely.

These designs are all based on a single block, which is made up of basic quilty units/shapes. I’m not sure how the design would work with prints, but I think there are loads of colour combinations worth trying in solids – whether it’s two colours, three or four (or more!).