Category: Sunday sketch
Sunday sketch #35
I love using Excel to design quilt patterns. It’s easy to set up a grid of squares, and quick to fill cells with colour. And who doesn’t love a red and white quilt?
I designed this on point in Excel and then flipped it 45 degrees in Illustrator.
You could make this design with a lot of half-square and quarter-square triangles, but it’d be much easier using strips, squares and rectangles. It’s actually one block repeated six times; you’d need to piece carefully to ensure that your white strips matched up.
Sunday sketch #34
More stars and stripes this week, still using Excel.
I like the balance between the two shades of each colour – almost as if you’re seeing the (saturated) front and (faded) back of a strip of fabric. I love the amount of negative space around the stars, and the white squares (on point) that emerge as a result. And those Devo hat-like triangular stacks – you almost don’t see the stars for the stripes.
Set the same design on point for a different effect:
Almost like a modern plaid of sorts.
Sunday sketch #33
Occasionally I put down my gel pen and Rhodia dot pad and pick up Excel instead: it’s easy to make a grid, and quick to fill cells with a range of colours.
I’ve been playing with stars and stripes this week.
I could create a diagonal edge between the two colours, but I kinda like the blunt, squared edge of the dominant blue stripe. Then again, angled ends at the outer edges of the stars might look nicer.
The easiest way to construct this pattern would probably be to modify common blocks: log cabins and courthouse steps. Around the outside, quarter log cabins could be created by using a large central square (in white) and adding pinky/peach and dark blue stripes to two sides only. Each stripe would need an extra bit of white at its end to make it span the length of the block. The inside 4 blocks in the above design could be made using the courthouse steps block, again with a central white square surrounded by coloured stripes (each with a bit of extra white at the ends). It’s a bit easier to picture what I mean by looking only at those central 4 blocks:
Each quadrant is the same block, rotated by 90 degrees. Such a simple design, but a great opportunity for some striking colour combinations or scrappy fabrics.
