I like playing with squares and triangles. They’re such basic shapes, but they’re so versatile. The design possibilities always seem endless to me. I was recently sewing up some blocks based on Sunday sketch #84, and decided to explore the idea of triangles around a central square.

(My favourite part of handsketching is those repetitive black lines. I just find them so calming – both to draw and to look at.)

This version is less busy than my original attempt, which squeezed three smaller triangles into each one you can see there. Sometimes less is more 🙂

Because the blocks in this design are offset – shifted one square over instead of directly above or below (or to the left or the right) – the design kinda migrates across the page instead of forming a neat shape with straight edges (like you’d want in a quilt). If you tilt the page a little, you can get a better idea of what a ‘square’ quilt would look like.

Of course, you could keep the orientation in the first image and just crop blocks to get straight edges, but I don’t think that’s as nice.

Because of the offset blocks, this design would be easier to make into a quilt pattern by piecing lots of little units rather than creating whole blocks first. The units themselves are just squares and half-square triangles. You could save a bit of time by using flying geese in some spots.