Sunday sketch #348

Something new this week, after a few weeks of (mostly) the same thing.

I started thinking of these little shapes as knots, but the more I played with them, the more they reminded me of little cross-stitches. So I re-coloured them as if the same thread was winding its way across a canvas.

Of course, cross-stitching doesn’t use a different colour thread for the bottom and top stitch, right? So here’s each stitch in its own colour. Somehow this doesn’t feel as cute to me. Maybe I should’ve put that pale pink back in.

I had a bit of trouble with this design, and I would’ve liked to keep playing with it but I got too frustrated. The block is actually set on point – it’s much easier to design with the curves at the cardinal points of the block (north, south, east and west) than in the four corners; then the straight black lines can be horizontal or vertical (depending on which way the block is rotated).

But setting the blocks on point means you get whitespace at the four corners (which is what makes up those empty spaces between the blocks). If I wanted to recreate a cross-stitch-like design, I’d have the blocks in a straight grid with only a bit of sashing between them. But that would mean redesigning the block so it fills a normal square… which would mean redrawing it rotated by 45 degrees. And for some reason, recreating the curves on the diagonal and getting them the right size was just too hard for me. There might be a way in Electric Quilt 8? But I couldn’t find it. Using the ‘Serendipity’ features didn’t work. Even grabbing the whole design and trying to rotate it didn’t work. I dunno. I’m sure there’s a way, I just haven’t found it yet.

It’s annoying to have a design in my head that I can’t get down onto paper (or the screen). I’ll come back to it one day!

 

Sunday sketch #347

Here are the diamonds I mentioned last week. I’ve simplified the inside of the block by removing the half-square triangles (they’re just coloured as squares now), which also removes the internal octagon. (This is all compared to the past few week’s sketches; if you’ve no idea what I’m on about, start with Sunday sketch #344 and go from there!)

This first version feels like overlapping lace to me… that circular movement, and all the dark blocks overlaid on a white background.

Making the internal stars white instead of dark blue helps to lighten the whole design, although I feel like the overlapping effect isn’t as prominent. As usual, I can’t decide which one I prefer.

And here’s a throwback to last week’s design, with the internal octagon shape back again and the diamonds coloured in the opposite way to the background.

I like how an element that wasn’t even really obvious in previous versions of this block is now the most prominent. It just goes to show the difference that colour (and colour placement) can make in a design.

I’m sure I could go for another few weeks, tweaking this design to create new sketches, but you get the idea. If a block has enough elements, you can add and subtract small components to make a big difference to the overall design. And then one design sparks another, which sparks another… ad infinitum.

I’d love to see some of these designs as actual quilts. They’d be easy to construct – they’re just half-rectangle triangles, half-square triangles and triangle-in-a-square units – and they’re all block-based, so you could batch-sew similar components and/or pieces of the same colour. (I love planning how I’ll approach a new project 🙂 )

Sunday sketch #346

If I was any good at planning ahead with my quilt designs, I would’ve posted a Valentine’s-related sketch this week, but… I’m not, so I haven’t. Instead, you get the latest in a series of related sketches (check out Sunday sketches #344 and #345 to see where it started).

The original inspiration for this series of sketches was a strip of three triangle-in-a-square units, which I included as part of my first design for Tara Glastonbury’s #quiltfromabrief series that she’s currently doing on her blog and in Make Modern magazine. You can see my design on Instagram – and at the bottom left, that strip of three triangles. It’s not something I’ve used much before (one on its own, definitely, but not three together). Ooh, the possibilities!

So this is the first design in the series where all the triangles are actually coloured in. You can see the similarities with the past two weeks’ sketches – that inner star, surrounded by an octagon, with an outer shell of half-square triangles (and now triangle-in-a-square units). And, of course, with so many elements in the basic block, there are loads of colouring options.

I always like the simplicity of a two-colour design (or three, if you count white), but multiple colours are good too.

And here it is in the same warm palette I’ve used before.

I think this design is quite ‘traditional’ (as opposed to ‘modern’) in a lot of ways, and I can certainly amplify that through colour placement.

Flipping the blue and white gives a somewhat similar look and feel…

Whereas flipping the green and blue produces a transparency effect that really highlights the circular movement around the design. I love this one! It’s one of my favourite versions. But it definitely feels traditional. Not that that’s a bad thing 🙂

A checkerboard background retains a lot of the circular motion, but is getting a bit too busy for me.

I also ‘opened up’ the designs a bit by adding more background colour (white) within each block – changing the corner pieces around the octagon to the background colour creates a square within the block and makes those corner triangle-in-a-square units a bit more obvious.

Funnily enough, I think the two-colour version feels busier than the multicoloured version. I’m not sure why.

I feel like this last version also emphasises those diamonds created by the triangle-in-a-square units between adjacent blocks. I’ll play with those more next week!