Tagged: paper piecing
Sunday sketch #43
I take photos of my sketches with an 8 Mp phone camera. I usually play around with the colours a bit (in Preview or Photoshop), as the phone camera – or the not-so-bright room where I take the photos – tends to make the white Rhodia dot pad look decidedly blue. I never seem to get the white balance quite right, but as these sketches are just a weekly exercise in creativity and commitment, I don’t mind so much.
Today I gave up on getting it right, and decided instead to get it really wrong:
I kinda like how the electric blue reflects the energy in the design – all straight lines and odd angles. It’s a rare occasion when I stray outside the dots! There are no half-square triangles or rectangles here – it’s all improv*. (Or a very big paper-pieced pattern!)
* For regular readers, it will probably come as no surprise that in the 43 Sunday sketches I’ve posted so far, this is the first time I’ve used the tag ‘improv’.
Sunday sketch #41
The density of this design (or maybe my tight hashing lines) almost makes it feel like an optical illusion. The repeating unit (a square on point) alternates between black-on-white and white-on-black in each row.
Normally I’d give some hints as to how the design could be made into a quilt pattern – e.g. whether it uses half-square triangles, rectangles or curves. In this case, I think paper piecing would be the best way to manage all those angles and precise points.
Sunday sketch #18
Like Sunday sketches #11, #12, #15 and #16, this week’s design comprises a single motif repeated in a random pattern. I love the consistency and order of these designs (which probably says a lot about me).
The arrow motif itself appeals to me, but I also love the secondary patterns that emerge in the whitespace. I purposely avoided creating any small enclosed shapes, but it would be easy to bring out diamonds or squares. I think they’d draw the eye in though, whereas I prefer letting the eye wander across the design with no specific focal point.
This is my favourite repetitive design so far. I can only imagine paper-piecing it, which I’ve never done before, but I’m going to try. I think this one’s worth the effort.
