This week’s sketch is an iteration (of sorts) of Sunday sketch #369. Instead of 8-pointed stars, I’m using 5-pointed stars, and instead of a 2-colour palette, I’m using a 4-colour palette.

I’ve followed similar rules for colour placement though. Each quadrant features 3 of the 4 colours: the stars are one colour, and the background is a checkerboard of 2 other colours. That creates 8 of the 12 possible star blocks across the whole design (4 x 3 = 12; it’s not 4 x 4 because I didn’t want the star and background to be the same colour in any block).

(I snuck in a ninth block in the design above; see if you can spot it.)

Here are a few more colourways.

There aren’t the same connections between quadrants as there were in Sunday sketch #369: none of the star or background colours extend across or down the design. I think that would be possible, but I didn’t try it.

If I’d wanted to include the remaining 4 possible block colourways, I’d have to add 2 more of those 5 × 5 ‘quadrants’ (although they wouldn’t be quadrants anymore if I added 2 more!). That kinda messes with the proportions, I think – the whole design becomes a bit too narrow and long. But it does mean there are 4 more choices for block colourways if you didn’t like some of these 8!

This week’s sketch would require a paper-piecing template for the 5-pointed star, I think. I’ve seen a few around, although I’ve never made one. Have you? Do you know of a good tutorial or paper-piecing template? I feel like I should try making one, one of these days. And then I might design more with this shape.