3.27.2011

spare a square

So this mess:


Has become this much neater mess:


over the course of today.  And because it's only 8-ish, I think I can get it basted and ready to quilt before being forced to turn in. 

Exhausted from having to piece a millionty squares, and back at the drawing board because my original plan yielded a quilt that was a few inches too big for the intended backing, I almost scrapped the center motif.  I'm really glad I didn't, because it's pretty much the only thing giving any sort of visual order to this quilt. 

On my last couple designs, I've struggled with the issues of light vs. medium vs. dark fabrics, and the problem is in clear evidence here.  I think that for what I'm going for to be successful, I need a variety of fabrics in narrower values ranges.  This quilt is based on the idea of a 10-patch square, two four patches and two larger squares, with two or three of those smaller squares being a different color and popping out from a monochrome-ish background. 

My monochrome-ish background didn't happen, because the values are all over the place.  

There are three yellow patches, which you can probably pick out, but which are pretty close to that pondscummy green and which therefore blend a little more than I'd like.  And I don't even like that pondscummy green, aargh.  I just didn't have enough different prints in the blue-green. 

"Modern" quilting seems to involve working with many different prints from a single line, which all or nearly all involve multiple colors in one fabric.  Rather stark patterns with clear geometric figures and plenty of white set off this nicely-coordinated group of fabrics.  I don't want to go totally for solids, because I like little prints, but what I've been doing so far with my stash hasn't really been working. 

I'm definitely going to finish and keep this one, because it has many fabrics that I love and is just the right size, but moving forward is going to require some re-thinking. 

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