Playing Around

I wanted to make a red, white, grey and black quilt for someone who loves red. This quilt included many many many HST's. I had an idea and I drew it out...

Then I made HST's and HST's and more HST's. I don't mind the repetitiveness of this activity as it is systematic and organized and produces a lovely pile of pretty little squares when complete. As I may have mentioned before, this type of activity fits well with my personality!

I used many different gorgeous print fabrics and did not plan for which went together. I was really trying to let myself go for the scrappiness of it all (Ha ha, I say now in retrospect).

I was super duper excited to begin playing with my squares. I popped them up onto my design wall into the pattern from my sketch and went 'ohhhhhh'. I went 'ohhhhhh', not in a good way. Boring. Messy - definitely not organized. I felt like my eyes had no where to rest. Man o man - I really have a hard time with scrappy. Why is it that I LOVE and ADORE so many scrappy quilts out there - yet I cannot feel it when it's mine??!!! I took it down so fast I actually did not even think to take a picture to share!

I did enjoy the play the ensued though. It's amazing how many designs these HST's can be rearranged into. I had no idea! I played and I played...

And I played...

I liked this diamond one, but felt it still did not offer enough rest for my eyes. I realized here, during this stage, that I liked the diamonds - especially with the backgrounds of each diamond using the same fabrics. I was getting somewhere.

Go bigger. I decided that bigger might help with the busyness of all the different patterns in the fabrics. I liked these new, bigger diamonds a lot.

Then I put my 2 ideas together, bigger diamonds - with fabrics in the center and backgrounds that match and YES! This makes my eyes and heart happy. This is the design I am going with. It has meant there has been some (MUCH!) stitch ripping and re-sewing to make enough HST's with the same fabrics for each block, but it is by far worth it as I see the design grow and I know it is the 'right' one.

I love how the design process is dynamic and flowing. It is interesting to me to see what I start with and what I end up with. I love that I can keep going when something doesn't please my eye - until I find just the design that does. These steps in the design of this quilt have been a great learning process for me. Now that I am settled on the design, I have begun to think about the quilting - always my fave part!


Hope you are all having a fabulous week in sewing and such! Linking up with Work in Progress Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

~Lisa