Category: Sunday sketch
Sunday sketch #91
More playing around with EQ8 this week. Can you tell I haven’t managed to develop many good colour palettes yet?
This is a block-based pattern: follow the horizontal and vertical lines until they lead to a black square, and that’s where four adjacent blocks meet.
I made a bigger design, then cut it down to this size (slicing some blocks in the process). It’s a pretty busy design (even in only three colours), so I thought it was better to have fewer blocks.
There are a few different ways you could make this – as is, or on point; and with squares, rectangles and triangles.
Sunday sketch #90
I haven’t had a lot of time to sketch lately, but I’ve been playing around with EQ8 more (which is probably one of the reasons I haven’t had a lot of time to sketch lately…).
But I miss sketching, and I miss the time it gives me to really think about my designs. In EQ8, it’s fairly quick to try something new and discard it, try it again in different colours, mess around some more and find an entirely new design… I don’t think I put the same amount of thought or effort into my design process. It’s definitely given me a lot to think (and maybe blog) about.
But enough about that. This week I’m revisiting a recent sketch. It’s certainly not a new design – you’ve probably seen something similar before – but I like the idea of supersizing blocks and featuring only a handful of large shapes in a single quilt design. And how lovely are my long sketch lines?! 🙂
I played with this image to try and reduce a dark shadow along one edge, and ended up inverting the colours. (Did I mention I’m no expert in graphics..?!) I just love the look of the new version!
And then I wanted to see the two blocks together. Because I already had EQ8 open, I just dropped each image in as a new fabric, scaled the blocks in a new quilt layout to the same size, then dropped the ‘fabric’ into each block. I’m sure there’s an easier/better way, but sometimes the rough/ready way is good enough!
These designs are all half-rectangle triangles. You’d only need three fabrics to recreate the look of this final design. Wouldn’t it look great in some Kona solids and Essex linen?
Sunday sketch #89
Another nine-patch with a twist this week. Well, two twists. One of the nine-patches has half-square triangle corners (like Sunday sketch #88), while the other one isn’t really a traditional nine-patch. I mean, it has nine patches, but… four of them are made from quarter-square triangles.
Alternating the two blocks creates squares that seem to float above the design, and diagonal strips that join the stars. Lots of unintentional movement!
Creating this design was a natural progression from the nine-patches I’ve been playing around with for the past few weeks, but the elements are so traditional, so well used, that I find it hard to believe someone hasn’t put these two blocks together before now. I checked my Pinterest boards and couldn’t find anything… but if you know of something similar out there, please let me know and I’ll update the blog accordingly.
