I've Changed My Mind

I've seen a quilting book recently with the title something to the effect of Listen To Your Quilts, and I've been doing a lot of that lately with my Spring Garden quilt. Much as I love the blue pinwheels I'm just not convinced that it's the right border for that quilt, so they will become another quilt.

I started auditioning different fabrics and combos and thought for a long time that the tiny red polka dot combined with the backing fabric was the answer, but it just wasn't strong enough. I do like the blue/green check as a potential binding though.

So back to the drawing board I went - literally - and into my files of favourite photos to see if I could glean any inspiration from there. My scribbling brings to mind a line that Olympia Dukakis had in the movie Steel Magnolias...'You have the handwritin' of a serial killer' (said in a thick Southern drawl).















I even took my notepad to the beach one night to ponder while enjoying the evening breeze, and that proved to be a good move cause I think I've finally nailed it.

I'm going to repeat the block that is currently around the outside edge (you know, the one that got me into this in the first place) but make it white with a coloured centre. All of the centres and the outside border will be the same fabric which will give the illusion of being a large, simplified eyelet. It means that I'll need to insert white set-in triangles to fill the gap because I've finished the edge as a straight line - a bit of a bummer because it would be nicer if those were square blocks on the point rather than split triangles but I guess that's what you get for designing on the fly. At the end of the day I'm not certain that it will be that visible.





And this is the fabric that I'm going to use. It picks up lots of other colours in the centre panel and I like the difference in scale between it and the small prints used in the blocks. Happy, happy, happy.

Now I've got to get busy cutting and sewing. I need to make 42 blocks and then cut the set-in triangles as well. Chop chop!...M