Tagged: drunkard’s path

Sunday sketch #370

I’ve been doing a lot of (what feel like) fairly simple designs lately, but I’m enjoying playing with basic shapes and palettes. I’m big into sticking circles (or pseudo-circles) around stuff – this week, it’s crosses.

I used a similar shape in Sunday sketch #131 (way back in December 2018!), but haven’t really played with it since. But I really like it.

It’s not quite a circle, not quite a squircle, but 4 quarter-circles (or drunkard’s path units) around a cross shape. Using a centre square in the middle of the cross increases the opportunity for interesting colour placement.

And those squares can be echoed in the sashing between the blocks, too. The design works without them, I guess, although it’s maybe not as interesting?

I’ve used a mixed palette here, but a more limited palette would work too.

I also removed some of the circles and retained the crosses – just to add some negative space and draw the eye around the design a bit.

There’s lots of potential with this design – lots of ways you could play with the palette and colour placement. I love simple, clean designs like this! They’re not earth-shattering from a design perspective, but very satisfying (to me, at least).

All you’d need are quarter-circles (or drunkard’s path units), squares and rectangles. I know a lot of people don’t like sashing, but I don’t mind it. I add it to a lot of my designs to break up adjacent blocks and avoid overcrowding. (Sorry!) But otherwise I think this week’s sketch would be a fairly easy make.

Sunday sketch #366

This week’s designs are the last in a series that were prompted by Tara Glastonbury’s ‘design from a brief’ challenge, which she’s doing this year on her blog and in her column for Make Modern magazine. Check it out if you haven’t already – it’s a fun way to play with quilt designs and cultivate more creativity.

The basic block in this week’s design is the same as last week’s, with one minor tweak. Can you spot it?

In two diagonally opposite corners, I’ve added a new curve that cuts into the full circle there. In the version above, those new curves create the centres of the flowers; the other corners of the block create those interstitial stars.

I removed some blocks in the version above, so you could see them a bit more clearly. Here’s the version with the block tiled across the full design. It’s a bit busy for me, but I still kinda like it!

A two-colour palette is possible, but then you get those areas where the interstitial stars are a checkerboard colouring, which I don’t like.

Or the design can be rotated so that the interstitial stars are all one colour, and it’s the flower centres that are checkerboard-coloured. I don’t mind this version, actually! It’s busy, but energetic and fun.

Here’s the three-colour version again, but where the flowers have petals of two colours.

There are enough elements in this design to provide a lot of colour play. You could use a ton of colour (it could get kinda psychedelic) or stick to a smaller palette. And like last week, the construction would just require a lot of half-circles and quarter-circles (or drunkard’s path units).

I love a good flower design – they always make me happy!

 

Sunday sketch #364

This week’s design came out of a design challenge that Tara Glastonbury’s been doing this year to help you kick-start your creativity. Tara’s been posting design briefs on her blog and in her column in Make Modern magazine. In Brief #5, called ‘Getting past a block’, Tara challenged participants to design a queen-size quilt using an analogous colour palette.

I love designing to ‘rules’, so I’ve enjoyed responding to each of Tara’s briefs. It’s a fun way to do something a bit different, and an excuse to post more designs to Instagram 🙂

It took me awhile to settle on an analogous colour palette that I was happy with (colour is always my nemesis!). Tara had also talked about William Morris as a design inspiration, so I started with curves and tried to come up with something floral/leafy.

I pretty much posted the first design I came up (even though I didn’t love it). But then I kept playing around with the idea of full circles bisected by more relaxed curves. Here’s where I got to.

This is a block-based design; you can see where the edges of the block are if I colour it a little differently….

I tried a few different two-colour combinations.

I also did my usual ‘modernising’ step by removing some of the blocks and block elements, introducing a bit of asymmetry, and adding some negative space.

I think I like the other version better, where the colours flow from one block to the next, obscuring their edges.

The design also works horizontally, where it’s a bit reminiscent of a rolling ocean with air bubbles on and under the water’s surface.

I also played a bit with the colouring of the layers, using darks at the bottom and lighter shades at the top. The light filters to the bottom while the air bubbles rise to the surface.

This week’s design could be made into a quilt using curves, curves and more curves. Specifically, half-circles or quarter-circles (drunkard’s path units), plus a more relaxed curve that might require a template. I’ve never sewn curves within curves before, so I’m not sure how easy it would be. I struggle making quarter-circles that are any smaller than about 4″ – they just come out all wonky – so I like the idea of a less curvy curve!