This week’s design came out of a design challenge that Tara Glastonbury’s been doing this year to help you kick-start your creativity. Tara’s been posting design briefs on her blog and in her column in Make Modern magazine. In Brief #5, called ‘Getting past a block’, Tara challenged participants to design a queen-size quilt using an analogous colour palette.

I love designing to ‘rules’, so I’ve enjoyed responding to each of Tara’s briefs. It’s a fun way to do something a bit different, and an excuse to post more designs to Instagram 🙂

It took me awhile to settle on an analogous colour palette that I was happy with (colour is always my nemesis!). Tara had also talked about William Morris as a design inspiration, so I started with curves and tried to come up with something floral/leafy.

I pretty much posted the first design I came up (even though I didn’t love it). But then I kept playing around with the idea of full circles bisected by more relaxed curves. Here’s where I got to.

This is a block-based design; you can see where the edges of the block are if I colour it a little differently….

I tried a few different two-colour combinations.

I also did my usual ‘modernising’ step by removing some of the blocks and block elements, introducing a bit of asymmetry, and adding some negative space.

I think I like the other version better, where the colours flow from one block to the next, obscuring their edges.

The design also works horizontally, where it’s a bit reminiscent of a rolling ocean with air bubbles on and under the water’s surface.

I also played a bit with the colouring of the layers, using darks at the bottom and lighter shades at the top. The light filters to the bottom while the air bubbles rise to the surface.

This week’s design could be made into a quilt using curves, curves and more curves. Specifically, half-circles or quarter-circles (drunkard’s path units), plus a more relaxed curve that might require a template. I’ve never sewn curves within curves before, so I’m not sure how easy it would be. I struggle making quarter-circles that are any smaller than about 4″ – they just come out all wonky – so I like the idea of a less curvy curve!