Believe it or not, I’m still working through a bunch of Irish chain-inspired designs.

(Also, believe it or not, I’ve made it to 500 Sunday sketches – woo hoo!!)

The Irish chain-iness of this one might not be so obvious, so let me show you where it started.

Normally an Irish chain quilt is made from an alternating arrangement of two blocks: a plain square, and a nine-patch (below left). The only change I’ve made is to modify the nine-patch to elongate that middle square (below right). That’s what creates the long sides of the pixelated circles (octagons?) in this week’s design.

             

As soon as I had the basic structure, I started filling in with some colour. My instinct was to add more long lines and squares to echo what’s already there.

   

There’s also space between the pixelated octagons to add something… a cross fits nicely.

   

   

In the versions above, I’ve put the colour towards the outside of the octagon; in the next few versions, it’s on the inside. That’s about the only difference between these two sets of designs (apart from how the crosses are treated).

   

   

I even tried this design in a larger palette.

   

These designs are fun, and I like them. But I obviously wasn’t completely happy with them, because I kept playing. (I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve seen kinda similar designs out there – e.g. the Eloise quilt pattern from Penelope Handmade and the Lucky Links pattern from Quilty Love share some similar elements, and I’m sure there are others.)

So I went back to my starting point and chose different shapes for the spaces within the octagons. I ended up echoing the pixelation using squares to create a larger cross shape. (I used a similar shape in Sunday sketch #432, which is still one of my favourites!) Notice that it’s the same shape that’s created where four adjacent octagons meet.

Even with such simple shapes, there’s still a bit of room for playing with colour placement.

   

Adding a third colour helps to differentiate shapes too. It also helps to make the connection between the cross shapes inside and outside the octagons.

   

And then I scaled the palette up some more. First, I kept the dark outline of the octagons but coloured some of them in the same dark blue, which effectively obscures that outline.

   

To be honest, I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, so next I tried a different colour for the basic outline.

Using the same colour for the background helps to obscure the outlines completely, which gives a different overall look and feel.

I’m not sure which one I prefer… I kinda like that version with the white outline. Or maybe it’s just that palette?

This week’s sketches would be super-simple to make into an actual quilt… they’re all just squares and rectangles. Making strip sets and subcutting would help to save time when piecing. This is another one of those designs that I think could end up being a really quick one to cut and piece if you got organised beforehand.

Can you believe I’ve posted 500 Sunday sketches?? I’ve always said I’ll keep going for as long as I’m enjoying it. I’m not sure I’ll manage another 500 (!), but I’ve got not plans to stop just yet. So whether you’ve just started reading recently or you’ve been here since the beginning, thank you for following along! I hope you’ve found these posts interesting, inspirational and/or informative! 🙂