Tagged: quarter-circle
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 #315
It’s probably pretty obvious that this week’s Sunday sketch is a direct evolution of last week’s. I didn’t even bother changing the colour palette!
I made one minor tweak to last week’s block design, then played around with colour placement. Although this first version is somewhat different from my usual designs, I really like the movement and sorta oddness of it. It’s like a spacey kind of treble clef mixed with a fleuron in a lava lamp.
If I colour the blocks differently, you can see the connection to last week’s design more easily. I’ve just replaced the half-square triangles from last week with larger curves. The columns of half-circles are still there.
This version makes me think of phases of the moon, or of light and shadow changing the appearance of the same object throughout the day.
The previous version uses different colouring for each row in the design; the next version uses the same colouring across the whole design (much like last week’s sketch).
Changing the colouring again – using just two colours per block – removes the horizontal and vertical lines from the design and emphasises those curves instead. Ocean waves?
This week’s designs could be made into quilts using just quarter- and half-circles (or drunkard’s path units) and rectangles.
The fact that I can’t decide which version I prefer means I’ll probably never make this one, even though I love it to bits. Such is life!
