Category: Sunday sketch
Sunday sketch #337
I don’t have too many designs up my sleeve at the moment, and when I sat down recently to draw something new, I ended up rehashing an old sketch.
This week’s design is a reworking of Sunday sketch #318, which I posted in July. I introduced some curves, which actually make the whole design simpler to construct as a quilt.
The shapes kinda remind me of Christmas crackers too: long rectangles (or cyclinders) capped by triangles at both ends.
Like the original sketch, this one illustrates the Bezold effect – an optical illusion where a colour (in this case, orange) looks slightly different depending on which colours are next to it. I didn’t know there was a name for this until Carolina Oneto mentioned it in a comment on my Instagram post for Sunday sketch #324 (obviously it’s an effect I use a fair bit!).
Anyway, this sketch could be made into a quilt using flying geese, half circles (or quarter-circles or drunkard’s paths units) and squares. I think it’d be much easier to make than the original sketch on which it’s based!
Sunday sketch #336
I don’t normally do improv or random, but this week’s Sunday sketch ended up that way (in appearance, if not in design).
This is actually a block-based design, but with multiple elements of each block coloured in a way that kinda hides the repetition.
It started as a much more recognisable design – a wonky nine-patch. Here it is in a standard layout, with 5 colours per block: the dark blue centre, and then 4 colours each for one of the long sides and small corner pieces. Then rotating the blocks creates some fun movement.
But after starting with the standard layout, I played around with the block placement and colouring. I kinda like how a fairly traditional block can feel more modern just with a few tweaks. I’ve seen some quilty conversations lately around the definition of ‘modern quilting’, and examples like this design make me question what counts as ‘modern’. I’m not sure I know.
Anyway, I like how far the first version of this design feels from the others. I can see the origin when I look at it, but I’m not sure it’d be completely obvious to others.
if I was going to make it, I’d probably rework it further to try and obscure as many of those vertical and horizontal lines as possible – they make it a bit too obvious where the edges of the blocks are. There are some areas where the colouring of the pieces makes those borders less clear, and I’d aim to achieve that more consistently across the whole design. I’ll keep playing with it.
I’m not sure if I’d piece a normal nine-patch and trim it down to the wonky version, or if I’d just use templates to cut the wonky shapes and then piece them together. The former would probably be more accurate, but the latter might be less wasteful.
Sunday sketch #335
More Excel designs this week. I wish I’d used a different colour in these designs – this blue feels too cold to me – but I’m too lazy to change it. (There’s probably a quick way to do a replace-all of coloured cells in Excel, but I’m too lazy to find it!)
I like this offset cross that appears in the centre of the design as a result of a series of corners lining up diagonally in all four quadrants. I guess the four quadrants of the design could be made using large log cabin blocks. The strips can be extended to the edge of the design too…
…or angled round more corners to create discrete rectangles. Now there are four more crosses in addition to the centre one.
There are other ways to play with that central cross. If you look closely at the next design, you can see that it’s a series of closed loops of varying length, connected to one another in pairs (apart from the four smaller rectangles floating at the far corners).
Or it can be simplified further – again retaining that central offset cross.
Like last week’s sketch, this week’s designs could be made into a quilt using long strips. I’d find it easiest to make up templates, and maybe even to use paper-piecing to get the strips sewn nice and straight.
Doing one of the simpler designs as a super-sized quilt would look great, I think. I’ll add it to my list… 🙂
