Playing around with traditional blocks or elements presents lots of design possibilities. Here I’ve combined an Irish chain design with a four-pointed star.

There are a few different elements in this design: the star arms (half-square triangles), the star centre (a square), the squares laid out on the diagonal (eight of which surround each star), and the squares where the diagonally laid out squares meet. Even in a limited palette, that means lots of options for colour placement.

   

   

When the arms of the star are the same colour as the squares on the diagonal (like in the two versions on the right, above), there’s added movement in the design overall. My eye is drawn round and round the design. The squares in the middle of the stars are also the same colour as the other squares in the same row and column. I like little examples of consistency like that.

I actually started with solid stars in the middle, which also works.

   

This is another one of those designs where colour placement matters. In a three-colour palette, I think the lightest and darkest colours need to be in the foreground, with the middle colour as the background. Otherwise the whole design feels a bit flat (I haven’t shown those versions). The whole feel of the design changes depending on where you place the light and dark colours – as the squares or the stars.

   

   

I also tried this design with a more symmetrical star in the middle. I love an eight-pointed star, so I use this shape a lot.

And, like the four-pointed star, it has a square in the middle, so the whole design can be coloured in lots of different ways. Here are just a few.

   

   

   

I really like that last one with the dark stars.

These designs would be really easy to make into quilts. They’re a combination of Irish chain designs with centre stars. Irish chains are just nine-patches in a standard layout, with an empty space in between (where I’ve placed the star). And four-pointed and eight-pointed stars are easy-peasy: a square in the centre, and either half-square triangles or triangle-in-a-square units (or half-rectangle triangles) for the arms.

Not a particularly modern design, but who says you can’t introduce some negative space, mess with the symmetry, and make bold use of colour?