Tagged: diamonds
Sunday sketch #236
New Year, new Sunday sketch! Happy 2021!
Onwards and upwards – a theme that fits well with this week’s sketch. I created a block of 2 diamonds, which have sharp chevrons – those pointy arrow shapes – at opposite ends. Flipping and rotating the blocks then creates movement between the diamonds and the chevrons, depending on how you colour them.
I had a hard time deciding on which was my favourite, but I like how the angles create hidden mountains in this first design.
This next design was my other favourite – it’s a bit more chaotic (although also following certain rules and order).
The designs can also be rotated so the diamonds lie horizontally rather than vertically. Suddenly the vertical zig-zag created by the border between light and dark shapes is more obvious.
The design can be simplified further by focusing just on the fine arrows. I like this version; it’s more delicate, and it allows other secondary shapes and movement to emerge.
Speaking of chaos, the blocks can also be rotated. Having said that, there’s clear order in this design: the blue arrows occasionally converge in a foursome, as do the larger white kite shapes.
The background of each block can also be coloured, introducing a bit more energy and movement.
And, of course, the design can use more than 2 colours. Here I’ve added green to highlight some of the diamonds. I first coloured all the diamonds on the diagonal…
…and then tried colouring diamonds vertically. I’m not sure which I prefer!
These designs are all based on a regular arrangement of diamonds. You could use a template to cut the diamond shapes (and piece them in diagonal columns), or just make each diamond from two triangles (and piece them in rows). The arrows/chevrons would probably be easiest to do well using foundation paper piecing (for accuracy).
Sunday sketch #195
I hope you’re all hanging in there, wherever you are in the world and however much coronavirus has disrupted your life and livelihood.
This week’s sketch is another super-simple one with lots of potential for colourplay and even different blocks.
Angle your head by 45 degrees and you can see that these are just square blocks arranged on point. Most of the blocks are either white background or coloured foreground squares. The other blocks are half-snowballs (basically a square with two opposite corners lopped off) and diamond shapes.
I originally started with the two easiest shapes, which might make the grid layout more obvious:
And, since it feels a bit like a chandelier or necklace, I played around with some negative space too…
This would be a great design for a quick and simple scrappy quilt. Many of us have a lot more time up our sleeves now, so feel free to whip one up if you’ve got the scraps!
Sunday sketch #79
I thought I was done with ribbon shapes for awhile, but they seem to have cropped up again. This design is a bit like Sunday sketch #74 – lines emanating from the corners of a square to focus on the centre – but with alternating colours.
I started this sketch after thinking about half-square triangles, but sometimes I wonder if it would be easier to translate designs like this one into quilt patterns by creating long strips of alternating colours (dark red and light red, or light red and white), then sub-cutting them at a 45° angle to get strips of those elongated diamond shapes.
