Tagged: drunkard’s path
Sunday sketch #321
I don’t know how many flower-themed designs I’ve created over the years – I should go back and count! They always make me happy. Here’s another one.
This is a block-based design, set on point. The blocks are made from a single unit, the quarter-circle (or drunkard’s path unit), plus some internal sashing. And the blocks are joined by sashing of the same width.
There are a few different ways to colour the three main elements (sashing/background, flower middle, and flower petals). In the first two versions of this week’s sketch, I’ve coloured the flower middle in the same colour, to provide some consistency across the design.
The petals can be coloured differently across the blocks, but I find that keeping at least one element in the same colour helps to avoid busy-ness.
I often try a two-tone, alternating colour scheme with block-based designs, and this one’s no different. For this design, which has a retro feel, I couldn’t resist my usual pink and red/orange combo.
The design feels even more retro in a standard (rather than on-point) layout. I like how the secondary shapes (squircles) are more obvious in this version.
This week’s series of sketches could be translated into quilts using lots of a single unit, the quarter-circle, plus some squares and sashing. I love the simplicity of this design, so I’m very tempted to try making one!
Sunday sketch #319
This week’s design is a little bit related to Sunday sketch #313, although with lots of differences too. I guess they’re related more in concept than in execution.
The design features a square block, set on point, in a standard layout. The blocks are made mostly from half-rectangle triangles, with two half-square triangles and a single quarter-circle (or drunkard’s path unit). That first colouring, above, makes me think of cactus flowers. The ones below are more like wheat stalks.
Note that the first three versions have sashing between the blocks; the version below doesn’t. There’s enough whitespace in the blocks themselves to not let the design feel too busy, although I think I still prefer the versions with sashing. I do like a lot of ‘resting’ space in designs though.
The previous versions have coloured all the blocks the same, but of course you could use a different colour per block. And I’ve used gradating colours within each block, but that’s not necessary either. I avoided trying that though (see comment on busy-ness, above!).
This week’s design could be made into a quilt using half-rectangle triangles of different sizes/ratios, squares, half-square triangles, and quarter-circle (drunkard’s path) units.
I think this is the sort of block that you could mix in with other flower blocks for a more random garden-y feel. The same block on repeat is maybe too much for a whole quilt? But it would work well to break up other botanical blocks. I guess I need to design a bunch of flower blocks to test that out! 🙂
Sunday sketch #317
I’ve been having fun with lots of basic shapes lately, and this week’s sketch is no exception. It’s another one featuring half-circles, quarter-circles and half-square triangles.
This design feels a bit celestial to me… those inner stars combined with circles that look like they’re straight out of a moon phase calendar.
There are so many minor variations possible with this design – for example, by alternating the colours of the inner stars or the half-moons.
I also like to treat some blocks differently from others. In the next version, I’ve filled in the outer half-moons for the outside blocks. This means the half-moons are only created when two octagons come into contact with one another.
And I can fill in all the internal shapes so that only the squares created from the 4 corners of adjacent blocks are white.
Or add more whitespace – this time filling in both sides of the half-moons so they become circles, and then colouring some of the stars white too. This changes the design quite a bit.
I also used that dark blue as a background for one of the earlier designs, but didn’t change the colour of the dark blocks. Now it looks like there are blocks floating in space, connected only by stars.
This Sunday sketch would be relatively easy to make into a quilt; you’d just need quarter-circles (drunkard’s path units), half-circles (if you want to save yourself making double the number of quarter-circles) and half-square triangles. And some versions don’t even use the half-square triangles.
