Sew Solid Sunday #3

Subtitled:   A lesson in value and reality.
I’ve had this stack of pretty pinks in my stash forever.  For this month’s Sew Solid Sunday, they just had to become a spring-y mini quilt.

I haven’t worked with triangles in a while so I thought a mess of half square triangles in all those lovely pinks would be perfect.  My idea was a garden of pink tulips, a little navy for a night sky (love pink and navy!) and a bit of green for the leaves.  I matched my pinks randomly other than avoiding putting the same fabrics together and started sewing.  I excitedly put them up on my design wall and….no.  Too much chaos for me!

Tulip Chaos!

In my rush to dive into that pretty pile, I forgot about value.  We have all been taught that you need light, medium and dark for a quilt to work.  In a quilt with more traditionally pieced blocks that is definitely true.  In this case, however, I wanted the “flowers” to have color variety, but still feel like a garden.  Too much value difference makes it feel chaotic.  I should have narrowed the value range, either darks and mediums or mediums and lights.

Ombre Tulips

Rather than start over, I rearranged the blocks to group similar values together as much as possible.  Grouping the values gives the quilt a softer feel which is more what I had in mind.  You’ll notice that the green didn’t make the cut either.  It ended up feeling distracting to me and not harmonious with the rest, so I left it out.

Almost finished

So, this is the (almost) finished quilt.  To be honest – I am not in love with it.  I thought that adding some free motion quilting would add to the organic, garden feel, but I am not happy with how the quilting came out.  Now, my free motion skills are minimal at best and I was hoping a bit of practice on this quilt would help.  Part of the problem, I think, is too much quilting.  I’d like my free motion to be, um, free-er.  Looser.  With better flow and larger.  I didn’t bind the quilt because I am considering taking out the quilting and trying again.  Although part of me says, call it done and move on to the next project.  So perhaps this is the “keeping it real” edition of Sew Solid Sunday 🙂  I can’t say I’m not a bit frustrated that this quilt didn’t work out more like my idea but I have learned to put these quilts in the “nothing ventured, nothing gained” column.

Whether the quilting stays or goes, I think I might bind it in a slightly dull green.  Not too bright to distract from the pink and blue, but enough to add to the garden idea.

So how have your solid projects worked out this month?  I hope they have all been brilliant successes!

 

8 Comments
  • Jessica
    Posted at 19:15h, 14 March Reply

    Wow, what great use of color. 🙂

  • Paula
    Posted at 15:55h, 10 March Reply

    It's a pretty little quilt, and picking out quilting is the WORST thing in the world ?

  • Jayne
    Posted at 18:58h, 09 March Reply

    I love this design. Especially since you added the black! Very nice! And, at least you FMQ!!

  • knitnkwilt
    Posted at 17:32h, 09 March Reply

    Your solution to what you perceived as chaos worked very well. I'd echo the "don't rip the quilting" in the above. We have the benefit of not knowing what effect you were trying for. It may not have made it, but the effect you got is good. Just remember, you are the only one who knows the original idea. Call it done and try another. Leah Day says we need to practice FMQ, not practice ripping. 🙂

  • Karen
    Posted at 13:52h, 09 March Reply

    I love this! I am not a fan of pink but love the concept and think it is pretty 🙂

  • Brenda
    Posted at 13:37h, 09 March Reply

    Bind it, wash it, and hang it on a high wall like a stairwell. I think you'll like it from farther away, and then you will see the texture of the quilting and not the individual stitches. Please don't take out the quilting — free motion just takes practice.

  • Leanne
    Posted at 13:25h, 09 March Reply

    I love both arrangements, and your quilting works well I think. I expect you had an outcome in mind and how your quilting looks compared to that is not making you happy but for me, I think it works very nicely. How big is your quilt.

  • Lucinda Miller
    Posted at 11:52h, 09 March Reply

    I like the way your pinks turned out – ombre tulips – good concept.

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