Tagged: stars
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 #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 #369
More eight-pointed stars this week! These are the ones that the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns by Barbara Brackman calls the ‘sun ray’s quilt’ block. And all the blocks called ‘eight-pointed stars’ in the book (and there are many!) look completely different to this one (and to each other…). But I’m sticking with ‘eight-pointed star’.
This is one of those apparently simple designs that I feel is a bit more complex on closer inspection. Each of the two blocks in each quadrant extend into the two adjacent quadrants. For example, at the top left, the orange squares continue on into the top-right quadrant, while the light stars against an orange background continue down to the bottom-left quadrant. At the top right, the orange stars against a light background continue down the design, while the orange squares continue across. It’s the same for each quadrant; they’re all connected.
I’ve used just two colours, as a larger palette would disrupt that connectivity. I’m really stuck on this dark green / light blue palette recently.
I’ve talked before about how I need to consciously ‘modernise’ a quilt design by taking elements away, introducing asymmetry, etc. So here’s my attempt at a ‘modern’ version of this one. It’s perhaps still a bit too balanced. I should’ve tried making the placement of blocks in each quadrant a bit more random.
I’ll never get tired of the bright orange and hot pink palette.
In EQ8, there’s a ‘Randomize’ feature where you can just click on a design and it’ll serve you up different colour palettes. Over and over and over again. It does seem pretty random; more often than not, they’re not very nice! But occasionally something interesting pops up. Here are a few I tried myself or stumbled upon by randomising.
I tried a few more iterations of this design too, by mixing up the placement of the stars and their backgrounds. I liked this checkerboard variation.
This week’s sketches could be made into quilts using eight-pointed stars (which require either half-rectangle triangles or a triangle-in-a-square block, plus a square) and solid squares. I mentioned last week that I wasn’t sure how small I could make an eight-pointed square and be happy with the precision; I have a feeling that the seams could feel kinda bulky in a very small star? I’ll have to try it and see.
