Tagged: rectangles
Sunday sketch #371
I mentioned last week that I love sticking stuff in circles, so – surprise! – here’s the next iteration of that design. I’ve increased the size of the central crosses and sashing so that I can squeeze in some eight-pointed stars where the crosses were.

Also, I think this might be my new favourite two-colour palette. Electric Quilt 8 says it’s Kona Oyster and Kona Torch, although I’m not sure they’d look exactly the same in real life.


The interstitial stars – the ones between the circles – are made from the sashing between the blocks. So they can go around the edges of the design too, and the centre squares can be coloured the same as the star or different. Lots of options!




I quite like a limited palette for simple designs like this, and I always love that dirty yellow with an off-black.


Or this dusky raspberry with the charcoal black. Yum.


The arms of the stars are long and thin, so I’d probably use templates (or the forthcoming HuRTy 2 ruler from Latifah Saafir, which will do 1:3 and 2:3 half-rectangle triangles). I’m not sure how small I could make triangles like that (and still have them be nice and crisp and straight). I should try it and find out!
Otherwise, this week’s design would be as easy to make as last week’s: a bunch of quarter-circles (or drunkard’s path units), some squares (for the middle of the stars) and rectangles for the sashing. You just need to pick your colours! 🙂
Sunday sketch #370
I’ve been doing a lot of (what feel like) fairly simple designs lately, but I’m enjoying playing with basic shapes and palettes. I’m big into sticking circles (or pseudo-circles) around stuff – this week, it’s crosses.

I used a similar shape in Sunday sketch #131 (way back in December 2018!), but haven’t really played with it since. But I really like it.
It’s not quite a circle, not quite a squircle, but 4 quarter-circles (or drunkard’s path units) around a cross shape. Using a centre square in the middle of the cross increases the opportunity for interesting colour placement.


And those squares can be echoed in the sashing between the blocks, too. The design works without them, I guess, although it’s maybe not as interesting?


I’ve used a mixed palette here, but a more limited palette would work too.


I also removed some of the circles and retained the crosses – just to add some negative space and draw the eye around the design a bit.

There’s lots of potential with this design – lots of ways you could play with the palette and colour placement. I love simple, clean designs like this! They’re not earth-shattering from a design perspective, but very satisfying (to me, at least).
All you’d need are quarter-circles (or drunkard’s path units), squares and rectangles. I know a lot of people don’t like sashing, but I don’t mind it. I add it to a lot of my designs to break up adjacent blocks and avoid overcrowding. (Sorry!) But otherwise I think this week’s sketch would be a fairly easy make.
Sunday sketch #362
This week’s block is the same as last week’s, so I’m cheating a little bit by making a new Sunday sketch rather than rolling these designs into last week’s post. But hey, it’s my blog, and I can do what I want! 🙂

I’ve rotated the block to create these new shapes. They’re admittedly kinda odd, but I like them.
Rotating again creates these shapes – don’t they remind you of moose antlers?

Here’s the same design shifted over, so the four antler conglomerations appear in full.

I tried different palettes, too, but I think I prefer the first one.

And there’s the antler design without the interstitial stars. I kinda like them too though. They add just that little bit of visual interest to keep things fun.

Like last week’s designs, this week’s sketch could be made into a quilt using quarter-circles (or drunkard’s path units), half-circles (or 2 × drunkard’s path units), squares and rectangles.
I probably won’t make this one. At small-scale and from afar, the design looks a bit too much like it includes a motif that I always try to avoid. I only really noticed after I drafted this blog post and then looked at the thumbnail image on the list of upcoming posts. Oops. Let’s not go there.
