Splat! The slightly irregular edges on this week’s sketch remind me a little of a liquid splashing onto a solid surface – or those slow-motion videos of crown splashes.

I wanted edges that undulate around the centre in rings, but I didn’t want the curves on adjacent rings to line up perfectly. Inserting a few thin borders between each ring helped to offset some of the blocks and add a bit of wonkiness. To be honest, I probably could’ve tried for a bit more, but I was happy enough with this as a first effort.

   

I tried a more regular arrangement of those half circles too. I was thinking that these next versions remind me a little of stamp perforations, but that’s not really what the edges of stamps look like (their half-circle holes are usually closer together and interrupted by a shorter piece with a blunt/straight end).

Anyway… I tried colouring this version in a gradation. The murky greeny colours are from the Electric Quilt 8 built-in palette; unfortunately I doubt I could match them to actual fabrics! The pinks are Kona cottons though.

   

   

I then went even thinner with the rings. Honestly, these versions would be a pain to make (for me, anyway) – even for a quilt of a decent size, those curves would be small.

   

I feel like these last few designs aren’t so interesting though. Or maybe I’ve seen them before?

I tried to do a spiral instead – I feel like there might be more potential in this idea, but I wasn’t feeling it enough to keep going. I can park these ideas here for now though!

   

So, back to the wonky version. I like it in two colours (I like almost every design in two colours!), but tried a few more too.

   

A three-colour version works well, too.

   

I think a design like this would be a great foundation for an improv quilt – just making random curves and joining them together in concentric rings; you’re bound to end up with some wonkiness. The hard part might be getting everything to fit well. I don’t have any advice there!

I mentioned above that this week’s sketch might be a pain to make into an actual quilt. I can’t really sew quarter-circles smaller than maybe 3.5″ (finished) – at least, not well enough to be happy with them. They often end up a bit wonky, but not in a good way. Even with great templates like the drunkard’s path templates from Papper, Sax, Sten, I still struggle. It’s more about my machine and the size of my fingers, I think!

So if I aimed for 4″ at a minimum, the version above would be 88″ plus a border. Which is pretty big. You could always remove one of the rings in the design to make it smaller, of course. I don’t think this is a design I’ll make, but I like the idea of incorporating a wonky curvy border into another design. It’s something I’ll keep in mind for future designs.