I imagined this design while drifting off to sleep one night – one of my most creative times for quilt designing (as long as I can remember the design in the morning!). I drew the block quickly in Electric Quilt 8 without overthinking it. The block is a bit hand-like; those extensions feel a bit like cartoon fingers. But this layout reminds me a little of dandelions, or maybe fireworks.

The unevenness of the block multiplies across the layout to give the design a fairly organic/improv feel. It feels fun and happy to me.

With only a two-colour palette, there are still quite a few versions you can create just by using colour placement and block rotation.

The blocks can be rotated this way and that.

And coloured this way and that.

I also tried a larger palette. I still prefer the two-colour version. Possibly because I love that warm orange paired with an off-white.

This last version’s just a nod to the grassy, tuft-like nature of the block design 🙂

I only used one block on repeat in these designs. I did create a few versions using a second five-fingered block, but I haven’t shared those (I don’t think? One might’ve snuck through…). They weren’t that much better than the originals.

I probably could’ve spent longer creating more similar-but-different blocks to mix together, but I feel like the more disorder is added to the design, the less ‘fun’ it feels. It just starts to feel messy, instead. I think part of the reason I can handle the ‘messiness’ of these designs is that the disorder (minor as it is) is contained and repeated. This is probably one (of the many!) reason(s) why I don’t do improv 🙂

You could make this week’s blocks using standard piecing, if you didn’t mind each block being slightly different. If you wanted them all the same, you’d be better off using paper-piecing. I think it would be possible to design a paper-piecing template that let you introduce some variation to an otherwise standard five-fingered block… so, every block would measure the same and have five fingers, but the placement and size of the fingers within each block could be slightly different. I’m tempted to try it just to see if that’s possible/easy.