Tagged: half-rectangle triangles
Sunday sketch #316
I like playing with tessellations, and this week’s design is the first one I’ve posted in awhile. (Sunday sketches #296 and #297 were the last ones, I think?)
This design is based on a single block, repeated and alternately rotated.
If I colour the blocks slightly differently, you can see where the edges are.
The blocks can also be laid out on point, although I think I prefer the standard layout.
Rotating the blocks in a different way breaks up the tessellation but creates new and interesting secondary shapes.
Or they can all be arranged in the same way, but just coloured in an alternating grid to emphasise the shapes within each one.
As usual, I started with a minimal palette, but the design lends itself to a broader range of colours/fabrics.
This design could be made into a quilt using some pretty basic shapes: half-square triangles, half-rectangle triangles, and flying geese (if you want to save a few seams).
Sunday sketch #312
This week’s design is the logical progression from last week’s: the same zig-zagging motif, but without the curves.
It works in the other orientation too.
That second version’s quite busy; I think perhaps a 4 x 6 layout of blocks (rather than the 6 x 8 layout I’ve used here) would be better – that would allow the zig-zaggy design to have impact without being overwhelming. The wide borders help to rest the eye, too.
This design would be easiest to make into a quilt using paper piecing. The internal shapes are not quite half-rectangle triangles, although the block could probably be tweaked to make them proper HRTs, which would then allow you to use standard piecing. Otherwise, each block would require two identical (triangle-shaped) templates. As there are only two colours per block, it would be pretty straightforward to make. It’s a bit reminiscent of Northern Lights, which was based on Sunday sketch #124, though that one was a bit more complicated.
Sunday sketch #305
After three weeks of curves, it’s back to angles and straight lines for this Sunday’s sketch.
Using only the blocks with coloured outlines could make the design feel a bit cluttered, but the consistency of the white centres helps to relieve the busy-ness (a bit).
And, of course, the blocks can be rotated to create star shapes behind that lattice of horizontal and vertical borders.
Paring back the palette helps to focus the eye on the different angles at play – horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines criss-crossing the design.
And to take the design in another direction entirely, I coloured adjacent blocks in a similar way, to create stacked bricks with different internal motifs.
I prefer the first few (brightly coloured) versions, but I like sharing the others in case it sparks a fellow quilter’s creativity!
These designs can be made using half-rectangle triangles, 2:1 rectangles, and longer rectangles or strips for the block’s borders. A very straightforward design that could be made easily into an actual quilt!
