DESIGNINGWITHINTRADITIONALBLOCkS 79
Designing within Traditional Blocks
For many years, I have used tra-
ditional patchwork blocks as a
stepping stone to what some might
describe as new or “original” block
designs. Original design can be a
slippery slope in traditional patch-
work, because there are only so
many ways to rearrange geometric
shapes. I prefer to describe my work
as “based on traditional patchwork,”
because as soon as I think I might
have designed something new or
original, it pops up in a magazine
or book. Although I might not
always be designing original work,
fracturing the space of traditional
blocks creates something unique and
special to me.
Specifically, what I do is take a
simple patchwork block I like, often
stars, and fracture the shapes within
that block into more shapes or
replace shapes with different shapes.
The more you break up or change
space, the more design, color, fabric,
and value opportunities are created.
My experience has been to fracture
the space of either grid-based blocks
or 8-pointed star drafting category
blocks, but you can use this design
idea with any style of block you
desire.
Simple Ohio Star block Design 1 Design 2Designing within Grid-Based Blocks
Let’s look at a simple Ohio Star block on a 3 × 3 grid. The four corner
squares and the center square are empty; this is a great place to add shapes
and create detail. The corner squares could be fractured into a square-in-a-
square, points, half-square triangles, 9-patch units, and so on. The center
could become another smaller Ohio Star block or any other block you’d like
(because you now know how to divide any size square into any grid forma-
tion, pages 17–18).Design 3 Design 4 Design 5