Tagged: flying geese
Sunday sketch #211
More block-based fun this week! You’ll probably recognise some elements that made an appearance in Sunday sketch #210 (and even as far back as Sunday sketch #110).
More secondary shapes, too, with crosses creating crosses.
I really like the way that the diagonal lines carry through from block to block, which I think is easier to see in this pared-back palette (with only 3 colours).
Those lines also present an opportunity for playing with transparency. I had to use a different colour palette to show you what I mean: red paired with white produces pink crosses where the shapes overlap.
Expanding the colour palette pushes those diagonal lines to the background and brings the individual blocks to the fore.
Those corner bits on each block can be coloured differently too, just to mix things up a bit. I’d be tempted to stick with a limited palette, like the one shown below. Or you could expand the palette but make all those corners the same colour. Otherwise, I think it could all get very busy, very fast.
This design would be relatively easy to translate into an actual quilt. It’s mostly standard blocks and shapes, with a few fiddly bits along the way.
Sunday sketch #210
The logical progression from last week’s Sunday sketch was to flip the design around, so that the curves are on the inside and the sharp edges are on the outside.
I mentioned last week that I’ve been playing with pale colours in EQ8 to try and recreate a scrappy, low-volume look. I don’t like using prints in EQ8 – they’re just a bit too much for my brain to handle 🙂 But I love the look of scrappy quilts so I’m pleased to have found a design compromise.
I tried this approach in a few colour palettes. Warm tones, which makes the design look very sunny (literally)!
And some paler tones too.
Of course, a quilt made from this design doesn’t need to be scrappy. There are other ways of using colour to define the different elements, such as highlighting those squares between the blocks.
Oops, I can see one half of a flying geese unit that I didn’t colour in, at the bottom left. Argh, and another one, in the block above it! Haha I missed that when creating the design, exporting the PDF, saving the PDF as a JPEG, and cropping the JPG to use in this post. It’s funny how it can take awhile to see something so obvious. Oh well. That’s life.
Like last week’s design, this week’s Sunday sketch is made from drunkard’s path units, flying geese or half-square triangles, and squares.
Sunday sketch #209
Regular readers know that I’m a sucker for block designs that create secondary shapes when they’re put together. This week’s design features corner curves that combine to create whole circles, plus flying geese that combine to create squares…. all around a standard sawtooth star.
There are really three main elements to this block design: the star, the star surround, and the background. That gives lots of opportunity for different colour combinations (part of me really wants to do the math to see how many, but I won’t 🙂 ). Here’s just the star surround on its own in colour, with the other two elements (star and background) in white:
Or both the star and the star surround in a mixed palette:
I feel like the circles are more prominent when they’re in white – what do you think? I love how the secondary shapes in any design can be brought forward or pushed back, depending on how they’re coloured (alone and in relation to other elements).
I realised recently that I could sorta recreate the look/feel of a scrappy, low-volume background in EQ8 by using some really pale Kona colours. (I always use Kona colours in my EQ8 designs, mostly because Robert Kaufman has the most colours and they’re the easiest fabrics for me to find/buy.)
This next version of the design combines bright, saturated colours for the stars with white surrounds and scrappy, low-volume backgrounds. Maybe this one’s my favourite?!
This design is made from drunkard’s path units, flying geese and squares. That’s it!
