Tagged: triangle in a square

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.

Sunday sketch #347

Here are the diamonds I mentioned last week. I’ve simplified the inside of the block by removing the half-square triangles (they’re just coloured as squares now), which also removes the internal octagon. (This is all compared to the past few week’s sketches; if you’ve no idea what I’m on about, start with Sunday sketch #344 and go from there!)

This first version feels like overlapping lace to me… that circular movement, and all the dark blocks overlaid on a white background.

Making the internal stars white instead of dark blue helps to lighten the whole design, although I feel like the overlapping effect isn’t as prominent. As usual, I can’t decide which one I prefer.

And here’s a throwback to last week’s design, with the internal octagon shape back again and the diamonds coloured in the opposite way to the background.

I like how an element that wasn’t even really obvious in previous versions of this block is now the most prominent. It just goes to show the difference that colour (and colour placement) can make in a design.

I’m sure I could go for another few weeks, tweaking this design to create new sketches, but you get the idea. If a block has enough elements, you can add and subtract small components to make a big difference to the overall design. And then one design sparks another, which sparks another… ad infinitum.

I’d love to see some of these designs as actual quilts. They’d be easy to construct – they’re just half-rectangle triangles, half-square triangles and triangle-in-a-square units – and they’re all block-based, so you could batch-sew similar components and/or pieces of the same colour. (I love planning how I’ll approach a new project 🙂 )

Sunday sketch #346

If I was any good at planning ahead with my quilt designs, I would’ve posted a Valentine’s-related sketch this week, but… I’m not, so I haven’t. Instead, you get the latest in a series of related sketches (check out Sunday sketches #344 and #345 to see where it started).

The original inspiration for this series of sketches was a strip of three triangle-in-a-square units, which I included as part of my first design for Tara Glastonbury’s #quiltfromabrief series that she’s currently doing on her blog and in Make Modern magazine. You can see my design on Instagram – and at the bottom left, that strip of three triangles. It’s not something I’ve used much before (one on its own, definitely, but not three together). Ooh, the possibilities!

So this is the first design in the series where all the triangles are actually coloured in. You can see the similarities with the past two weeks’ sketches – that inner star, surrounded by an octagon, with an outer shell of half-square triangles (and now triangle-in-a-square units). And, of course, with so many elements in the basic block, there are loads of colouring options.

I always like the simplicity of a two-colour design (or three, if you count white), but multiple colours are good too.

And here it is in the same warm palette I’ve used before.

I think this design is quite ‘traditional’ (as opposed to ‘modern’) in a lot of ways, and I can certainly amplify that through colour placement.

Flipping the blue and white gives a somewhat similar look and feel…

Whereas flipping the green and blue produces a transparency effect that really highlights the circular movement around the design. I love this one! It’s one of my favourite versions. But it definitely feels traditional. Not that that’s a bad thing 🙂

A checkerboard background retains a lot of the circular motion, but is getting a bit too busy for me.

I also ‘opened up’ the designs a bit by adding more background colour (white) within each block – changing the corner pieces around the octagon to the background colour creates a square within the block and makes those corner triangle-in-a-square units a bit more obvious.

Funnily enough, I think the two-colour version feels busier than the multicoloured version. I’m not sure why.

I feel like this last version also emphasises those diamonds created by the triangle-in-a-square units between adjacent blocks. I’ll play with those more next week!