A few weeks ago, I shared a sketch featuring stripy blocks that were subcut into triangle-in-a-square units. Depending on the colour palette and placement, the design could look like larger transparent shapes had been placed over a checkerboard of stripes. I’d also tried the same effect with curves, but decided not to include those pics in that post. But one of the first comments I got on Instagram (from Kacie @whoop_ingcrane) was asking how the same design would look with curves, so here we are!

The main image I showed of Sunday sketch #478 featured three colours, but in both cases I started my design play with a two-colour palette.

The basic block here is just a quarter-circle in stripes. When the blocks are all rotated in the right way, circles emerge like bubbles floating over a checkerboard of stripes.

I like how the circles look a bit like magnifying glasses, slightly altering the underlying pattern.

Rotating the curves another way creates these different shapes instead. (They have a name, but I always forget it… not bricks… maybe I’m thinking of tumbler blocks? But that’s not quite right either….)

Anyway, my favourite part of this layout is those four four-pointed stars that emerge in the centre (in yellow on the left, in light pink on the right). Can you see them?

   

Sometimes it’s easier to see the shapes with a different palette. Here I’ve rotated the shapes to create pinwheels. Notice how just changing the border colour (and nothing else) can slightly change what you perceive the background colour to be.

   

   

With all those potential layouts, I still prefer the full circles.

Colour choice and placement really make a difference in how much the circles ‘pop’ or blend into the background.

   

And then the fun just comes from moving things around and taking stuff away. In the second version here, I’ve used only 3 colours and extended the black beyond the edges of the circles. They end up looking like a background feature rather than coming to the foreground as in the other versions.

   

If I were to make this design into a modern quilt, I’d probably introduce some asymmetry, leave some ’empty’ space (well, space without the circles), and keep tweaking the colour palette.

Towards the end of writing the blog post for Sunday sketch #478, I realised that my original idea of piecing the stripes was daft, and that a much smarter approach would be to find the right striped fabric. That’s definitely what I’d do if I were making this week’s sketch into a quilt. I can tell you that even piecing stripes with straight lines has proved challenging – because yes, I’m making a version of #478, or at least trying to – so I’m not even going to attempt this one. But wouldn’t it look awesome?!