When I first laid out all the squares for this quilt, I just randomly pulled 20 squares out of the 40 squares I had made, and I had a bit of a panic. It looked just WAY too busy and crazy. It didn't seem to blend well at all. You could hardly even see the stars.
So then I laid out the other 20 stars, and realized that all the stars with cream and light polka dots and cream were in the second pile, while most of the ones in the first pile had the little firecracker patterns or cherry patterns, which were REALLY busy.
I was doing this at youth group while the kids were out doing a bigger and better hunt, and one of my older students (he's in second year university) stopped by to say hi. I recruited him to help me figure out how to fix my two quilts. Twenty minutes later, after much turning and switching and switching back of blocks while discussing why he was more suited for a different program than the one he was studying in, and we had a layout.
We decided this quilt had a "red" vibe, while the other kept a more mellow "blue" vibe. I was happy because that had been my plan from the time I accidentally miscut the red daisies many months ago and had to substitute a bunch of blue to make up the difference . . .
So then I got to work, as described in this post and quilted this beauty in two days. I am super happy with how well the Heather Bailey fabric on the back co-ordinates with the American Jane stuff on the front, and how the tone on tone orange makes a perfectly luminous border.
I was a little sad that I pulled it out of the wash on Monday afternoon and gave it to my god daughter monday night. No showing it off to anyone (well, except online). But I think it was better that way. If I had had it laying around my house for more than a few hours, I don't think I would have been able to give it up.
This quilt is definitely my best work yet. With Jeremy's quilt , I felt like I finally got my patchwork and quilting techniques up to a level I was happy with. With Marie's quilt, I feel like I'm also starting to get to the quality of composition and colour mixing that I am happy with. I feel like I'm getting into a quilting groove. As much as I love all those Modern, stark quilts made with solids, it appears I am a busy patchwork quilt kind of girl. Ah well, Glorious Patchwork, here I come.
2 comments:
Oh Jill- that is SOOO Beautiful!
hi Jill,
I've been raving on Facebook (it's my profile pic), and it's also my desktop on my laptop. It is so beautiful. It gives me a little burst of happiness everytime I see it. Your goddaughter doesn't want to be covered up by anything else (waiting for their flannel sheets and so still have their heavier blanket under the quilt for now--the first night when I tried to put the blanket on her, she says "no, i want to snuggle with my quilt" so it has to be directly on her for her to be happy. hopefully she'll eventually let me use a sheet!
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