Category: Sunday sketch
Sunday sketch #233
This week’s design is related to Sunday sketch #171, which I posted back in October 2019. (I’ve been reworking that one recently, hence this one.) I set this sketch aside after making it, and now that I look at it again, I just see a fleet of TIE fighters 🙂
It’s hard to avoid using transparency effects in a design like this. Those big right-handed triangles just look like they want to be overlapped.
This design is mostly squares and half-square triangles. It could get a bit tricky with those teeny squares floating on point; I think the easiest thing would be to insert them into sashing between rows.
Sunday sketch #232
Hearts! You know that emoji with the heart and a little drop under it? I always thought that was a bleeding heart, but apparently it’s a ‘heart exclamation’. I’m not sure when you’d ever use it… when you really love something?? Who knows. Anyway, that emoji inspired this design…!
This one has upright hearts, no matter which cardinal direction the quilt is facing.
It works in just two colours (plus white), too.
I also made a more light-hearted version (haha see what I did there??) by reversing the colourway and using a darker background.
You can also alternate the block layout to a 3-2-3-etc layout rather than a 2-3-2-etc layout. The helps to fill out the corners of the design a little more, so there’s less negative space around the outside of the design.
I prefer the version(s) with more white space, but it’s good to have options! 🙂
And it scales up well too…
These designs could be made into actual quilts using mostly squares and rectangles, with just a few triangles needed for the outside corners. The central part of the block is essentially the ‘deck of cards’ quilt block, with a few added bits around the outside. Super-easy! So much so that I made the smaller version of the quilt top in about a day and a half while on a quilty retreat recently. And that’s counting the time it took to fix silly mistakes that I made by forging ahead without thinking first! So definitely one that could be made in a weekend.
Sunday sketch #231
You might be able to see the similarities between this week’s Sunday sketch and last week’s. Instead of a central diamond (or square on point) for the pill shape, I’ve just used a circle. Depending on how you look at it (or what colours you use), the circle can look like the shape created by two overlapping pill shapes.
Here I’ve just picked five colours and applied them in a regular pattern.
Paring back the design a little focuses only on those long pill shapes.
In the next two versions, I’ve used the same colour consistently for the shapes running horizontally (pink or yellow) or diagonally (green or pale pink). The centre spots are all the same colour.
But I could also go in the opposite direction and use a random mix of colours and positions. This one’s my favourite!
Of course, the design can also be rotated by 90 degrees so that the shapes run horizontally. Here I’ve limited the centre circles to just two colours, and run them vertically.
Or you could flip the design back so that the shapes are vertical again, but with the colours running diagonal. Don’t these look like lipsticks all lined up? OK, maybe not the yellow ones… 😉
These designs could all be made with drunkard’s path or semi-circle blocks, plus some rectangles and sashing. There’s lots of repetition in these designs, which lends itself well to chain-piecing!
