Sunday, April 22, 2012

Design Opportunity

So I am making a quilt this dark and rainy weekend.  The photos will show the truth of the "dark" part of my statement.

I started the applique part a while ago.  The story of the applique part goes something like this:
  1. Design applique
  2. Prep applique
  3. Applique
  4. Cut into a circle, incorrectly beyond repair
  5. Re-prep applique
  6. Applique
  7. Cut into a circle, incorrectly yet repairable, but do not notice it at first
  8. Piece into background sideways
  9. Remove from background
  10. Notice the incorrect circle-cutting
  11. Un-applique a leaf
  12. Re-applique the leaf so it is well inside the piecing
  13. Re-piece circle into the background, correctly
  14. Lie down in a darkened room to recover
Once I recovered, I was ready to quilt.  Have I mentioned how much I love my sweet  Sweet Sixteen?  I do,  I do, I do!  I am excited to quilt this quilt on my baby.

I quilted the background of the applique:


I quilted two fun circle patterns:



The it was time to add the background quilting.  I chose diamonds:


Problem.  I felt the diamonds were too big and puffy and distracted from the circle motifs.  Agree?:



I decided to add some quilting to the center of the diamonds.  

Choice #1 -- inner diamonds.



Rejected.

Choice #2 -- pumpkin seeds:


Rejected.

Choice #3 -- spiral diamonds:


Rejected.

Choice #4 -- concentric diamonds:

I decided to keep this design, for now at least.

I still have to un-quilt my rejected designs.  Words cannot express how excited I am to pick out 18 stitches to the inch in 100-weight thread.  Maybe chocolate will help?



6 comments:

Kati from Kati's Quilting said...

Debby, I also liked the pumpkin seed version, but like the diamonds too! Sorry that you have to rip out the stitches, the quilt is going to be beautiful, keep that in mind! :)

Kim said...

damn!

Gari in AL said...

Talk about a learning experience. But what great stick-to-it-iveness.

Gail said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gail said...

I'm curious what you didn't like about the spiral diamond. My favorites are either diamond, but it seems the spiral diamond would be lots easier than the concentric diamonds.

Debby Brown said...

Gail, The concentric diamonds looked "wonky" when seen all together. I preferred the symmetry of the concentric diamonds. And I stitched a horizontal line through each diamond which avoided making any knots. Make sense?