Tagged: drunkard’s path
Sunday sketch #385
The last two quilts I’ve made have featured mostly curves, so I’m on a bit of a curve kick at the moment.
I began with a basic four-petal flower block, set on point. I’ve used this shape before (see Sunday sketch #366), but not as much as I thought I had. It feels really retro and happy, so a good starting point!
Each of the petals is made up of four quarter-circles or drunkard’s path units, so a natural iteration is to use a different colour in one of those. That introduces some new lines that create secondary shapes (squares) between the flowers. (I also changed the shade of pink that I used – you can see the difference in the background colours of these two versions).
After that, I played with colour placement a bit more. I also added curved corners to the blocks, and used different colours for the block background and the quilt background. Depending on what colours are used where, different shapes get pushed to the background or pulled to the foreground.
I’ll show you more designs along those lines next week. For now, here’s another version that makes the most of those concave curve-based squares (and partial pointy shapes) between the flower blocks. I’ll play with those more next week too.
This week’s design is a lot like Sunday sketch #271 – so much so that I’m surprised I didn’t do a curvy version back then. Both designs have a (pseudo) sawtooth star as the central motif and make a feature of those interstitial squares.
These designs could all be made using quarter-circles or drunkard’s path units. Lots and lots of them! Oh, and because the blocks are set on point, you’d also need corner and setting triangles.
Sunday sketch #376
I’m still using the same block as the past two Sunday sketches, but I’ve removed some parts this week. (This is easy to do when designing; I just make bits ‘disappear’ by colouring them the same as the background. Obviously if I were making these blocks, I’d revise the design so there were fewer pieces in the block to begin with.)
So how did I get here from there?
Last week, I ended on a layout in which the blocks were set on point. Both the rounded and the squared corners in each block were coloured the same as the background, and the block had a leaf shape (also in the same background colour) in the middle. I didn’t love those versions.So this week, I’ve removed that internal leaf shape and replaced it with the square that was there originally. I left the curved corners coloured in, but the squared corners are still gone (coloured as background). And then I mixed up the colouring to highlight a different set of shapes within the design. I really liked these retro Xs, with their arms separated by the sashing in between blocks.
The four ‘arms’ of each X come from four adjacent blocks; each block has two arms in two different colours.
It’s quite a busy design when it’s multicoloured, so I tried a two-colour, alternating layout instead.
I liked that one, but I felt that the retro nature of those Xs really cried out for a standard layout.
And then I added some more space just to let the shapes breathe a bit. This layout’s reminiscent of Sunday sketch #373, too – two grids of 3 × 3 overlapping.
As always, I kept iterating this design, although that first version is my favourite. I tried colouring the sashing between the blocks, which ends up creating a plaid-ish effect.
That added colour removes the retro feel and gives this a more traditional feel. I still like it though!
Like the past few weeks’ designs, this week’s sketch could be made using squares, rectangles and quarter-circles (or drunkard’s path units). The curves would need to be pretty small – something I still struggle to do well – but the rest of the piecing would be pretty straightforward.
Sunday sketch #374
I don’t often use prints in my designs (or my quilts), but this week I picked out some basic blender prints in EQ8 to subtly differentiate between the blocks.
This week’s sketch is a bit like Sunday sketch #162, but there are four dark corners in each block instead of two, two corners of the block are curved instead of square, and the sashing between the blocks is thinner than the rectangular parts of the block (rather than being the same thickness).
Because of the four dark corners in this week’s sketch, the design works well for a bit of transparency. But also just a two-colour palette (three if you count the background).
A bigger palette works too.
I also tried colouring in the full blocks. I haven’t decided yet how I feel about this one! I like how it emphasises the dark squares and that effect of that white grid in the foreground. But I kinda feel like the black squares in each block make less ‘sense’ like this.
I tried switching some to curves, to create interstitial circle rather than squares.
This last version sent me in a whole new direction, which I’ll share next week.
This week’s sketch could be made using rectangles, squares and quarter-circle units (or drunkard’s paths), plus some sashing.
Update (28 Feb 2024): I’ve just discovered that these designs are very similar to a quilt pattern released by Lynne Goldsworthy (@lilysquilts) in (at least) 2015. I can’t find The Tube Quilt pattern anywhere online anymore, but it may still be out there?
