Tagged: sashing
Sunday sketch #231
You might be able to see the similarities between this week’s Sunday sketch and last week’s. Instead of a central diamond (or square on point) for the pill shape, I’ve just used a circle. Depending on how you look at it (or what colours you use), the circle can look like the shape created by two overlapping pill shapes.
Here I’ve just picked five colours and applied them in a regular pattern.
Paring back the design a little focuses only on those long pill shapes.
In the next two versions, I’ve used the same colour consistently for the shapes running horizontally (pink or yellow) or diagonally (green or pale pink). The centre spots are all the same colour.
But I could also go in the opposite direction and use a random mix of colours and positions. This one’s my favourite!
Of course, the design can also be rotated by 90 degrees so that the shapes run horizontally. Here I’ve limited the centre circles to just two colours, and run them vertically.
Or you could flip the design back so that the shapes are vertical again, but with the colours running diagonal. Don’t these look like lipsticks all lined up? OK, maybe not the yellow ones… 😉
These designs could all be made with drunkard’s path or semi-circle blocks, plus some rectangles and sashing. There’s lots of repetition in these designs, which lends itself well to chain-piecing!
Sunday sketch #204
I continued on last week’s theme of blocks made up of thin lines. I stuck with the curvy block and added a few more, then jumbled them up. I wanted to design the blocks so that there’d be instances of (some of) the lines continuing from one block to the next. And I separated the blocks using sashing of the same thickness.
I played around with colours for ages, but didn’t find anything that I liked as much as the black and white.
The whole design feels quite whimsical to me, hence the candy colours, I think.
Or each block could be coloured differently. This gives the whole design quite a different feel (maybe also because my choice of colour palette’s not so hot).
Or monochrome. I picked a vibrant yellow, and then reversed it, but of course this would work for any combination of two colours.
This design reminds me a bit of breeze blocks, those concrete blocks that let air through. (Speaking of which, check out how quilter Ben Millett created 4″ breeze-block-like units earlier this year, here and here. I’m hoping he makes them into a quilt!)
My design could be made into a quilt pattern – with blocks in whatever arrangement you wanted – using a combination of normal piecing (for straight bits) and paper piecing (for curves) for accuracy. Lots of variation and versatility!
Sunday sketch #190
Remember in last week’s post, I mentioned liking a star shape that emerged from the quarter-square triangle design? Well, I decided to take that star, which is based on a 3×3 grid, and use it in its own design.
I separated the stars with some thin sashing, using small squares to fill in the negative space where the horizontal and vertical sashing meets.
Of course, you could fill in that middle square too.
But I also like the idea of filling the empty square with a different colour, to mix things up a bit. This is my favourite version. This is also a bit of a quirky colour palette for me, but I really like it.
I think the design works without the sashing, but only when the blocks are coloured in a way that distinguishes each one from its neighbours… otherwise I think it looks too busy.
The design works in a more limited colour palette, too. Here I’ve used 2 colours plus the background, and just alternated the central 4 half-square triangles with the outside 4 quarter-square triangles to add a bit of interest.
And if you have the same reservations I do about using white/light backgrounds for quilts, you can use a dark background instead.
This design could be made into a quilt using half-square triangles, squares and quarter-square triangles. Plus a bit of sashing – or not!
