Monday, February 13, 2012

Design dilemma

I fell in love with this design from Kim Brackett's "Scrap Basket Sensations":
 and remembered that I had yardage of a brown monoprint and scraps from the "Buttercup" and "Fresh Cottons" collections from previous projects.  During the first week of the Orca Bay mystery, I made 16 blocks for the center of the quilt and through the weeks added 20 more for a 6 x 6 layout.  Then I ran out of fabric.  I wanted it larger so I bought a jelly roll of "Buttercup" on sale online and made 28 more blocks to finish the designed size:
Here it is with the blocks laid out in order.  Before I start joining the rows I wanted to decide if there was something else I could do to make the quilt larger.  I have more 2 1/2" x 4 1/2" scraps of the colors and plenty of the brown, so I'm thinking about adding a 2" brown border and then a 4" picket-style multicolor border with the brown triangles added to the outer tips to make the pickets.  Perhaps then finish it up with another 2" brown border.  What do you think?

I also thought about a 2" border between the outer and second concentric rows, and made up the difference in the length by adding two 2" brown strips between the 2nd/3rd and 6th/7th blocks, which looked good on paper but not in person.  I scratched that idea.

Or should I let well enough alone?  I would like the quilt to be a little bigger.  My picket border would size it up from 64" square to 80" square.  It would also be a lot of work, making those 128 pickets plus the corner blocks.  I'll have to look at my scraps again and see if I have enough before thinking further

5 comments:

Teresa in Music City said...

That's a lovely quilt! It would be a shame to have it too small to really enjoy, so if you want it bigger, I say put the time and effort into making it the size you really want. Otherwise, you'll always have regrets when you look at it. I think the picket border would fit it perfectly!

The Calico Cat said...

1. Bigger is Better! Especially with quilts.
2. "I would like the quilt to be a little bigger." See you already answered the question yourself!
3. No opintions on how to make it bigger...

Helen in the UK said...

It is beautiful! I'd be tempted to leave it just as is, but if you'd always wish it was bigger make it bigger NOW :)

Pieces of Cotton said...

Oh that's beautiful!! No border suggestions - I just love the pattern and the colors. Beautiful quilt.

Tanya said...

What a beautiful quilt. And what a lot of work that went into it! It is a real shower!