Tagged: square
Sunday sketch #378
This week’s sketch is an iteration (of sorts) of Sunday sketch #369. Instead of 8-pointed stars, I’m using 5-pointed stars, and instead of a 2-colour palette, I’m using a 4-colour palette.
I’ve followed similar rules for colour placement though. Each quadrant features 3 of the 4 colours: the stars are one colour, and the background is a checkerboard of 2 other colours. That creates 8 of the 12 possible star blocks across the whole design (4 x 3 = 12; it’s not 4 x 4 because I didn’t want the star and background to be the same colour in any block).
(I snuck in a ninth block in the design above; see if you can spot it.)
Here are a few more colourways.
There aren’t the same connections between quadrants as there were in Sunday sketch #369: none of the star or background colours extend across or down the design. I think that would be possible, but I didn’t try it.
If I’d wanted to include the remaining 4 possible block colourways, I’d have to add 2 more of those 5 × 5 ‘quadrants’ (although they wouldn’t be quadrants anymore if I added 2 more!). That kinda messes with the proportions, I think – the whole design becomes a bit too narrow and long. But it does mean there are 4 more choices for block colourways if you didn’t like some of these 8!
This week’s sketch would require a paper-piecing template for the 5-pointed star, I think. I’ve seen a few around, although I’ve never made one. Have you? Do you know of a good tutorial or paper-piecing template? I feel like I should try making one, one of these days. And then I might design more with this shape.
Sunday sketch #377
This week’s sketch features rail-fence-like blocks with square-in-a-square units as the main element. The middle row or column of each block (depending on its orientation) is differentiated from the adjacent columns/rows by switching the colouring of the squares and background. This creates floating rectangular shapes within the design.
Here it is in red and white and in the reverse colourway.
I often like trying a design with a different block layout; in this case, setting the blocks on point. Now instead of running horizontally and vertically, those floating rectangles are sitting diagonally. And the background (or foreground?) grid is now a checkerboard.
Rather than having some of the floating rectangles only half-appearing (on the edges of the design), I’ve removed those ones so that the design has only complete rectangles.
I think from afar, this design can look like a bit of a jumble, until you look more closely and see that there’s some regularity to those floating shapes.
Removing some of the rectangles gives the eye a (little) bit of room to rest, and makes the remaining rectangles more of a feature. This might be something I’d do if I were submitting this design to a modern quilt show.
As the background (or foreground?) checkerboard pattern can be a bit overwhelming, I also tried removing some of it. This gives the eye much more room to rest. Ahhhhh.
This week’s sketch(es) could be made using squares, half-square triangles and quarter-square triangles. Despite describing the main block as including square-in-a-square units, I wouldn’t actually use those units to create this design; simple squares and HSTs/QSTs would be enough.
Sunday sketch #376
I’m still using the same block as the past two Sunday sketches, but I’ve removed some parts this week. (This is easy to do when designing; I just make bits ‘disappear’ by colouring them the same as the background. Obviously if I were making these blocks, I’d revise the design so there were fewer pieces in the block to begin with.)
So how did I get here from there?
Last week, I ended on a layout in which the blocks were set on point. Both the rounded and the squared corners in each block were coloured the same as the background, and the block had a leaf shape (also in the same background colour) in the middle. I didn’t love those versions.So this week, I’ve removed that internal leaf shape and replaced it with the square that was there originally. I left the curved corners coloured in, but the squared corners are still gone (coloured as background). And then I mixed up the colouring to highlight a different set of shapes within the design. I really liked these retro Xs, with their arms separated by the sashing in between blocks.
The four ‘arms’ of each X come from four adjacent blocks; each block has two arms in two different colours.
It’s quite a busy design when it’s multicoloured, so I tried a two-colour, alternating layout instead.
I liked that one, but I felt that the retro nature of those Xs really cried out for a standard layout.
And then I added some more space just to let the shapes breathe a bit. This layout’s reminiscent of Sunday sketch #373, too – two grids of 3 × 3 overlapping.
As always, I kept iterating this design, although that first version is my favourite. I tried colouring the sashing between the blocks, which ends up creating a plaid-ish effect.
That added colour removes the retro feel and gives this a more traditional feel. I still like it though!
Like the past few weeks’ designs, this week’s sketch could be made using squares, rectangles and quarter-circles (or drunkard’s path units). The curves would need to be pretty small – something I still struggle to do well – but the rest of the piecing would be pretty straightforward.
