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January 29, 2006
Denyse Schmidt Quilts and so can I
Here's the finished quilt top. It's not quite how I imagined it, but I'm still pretty satisfied. The colors are too contrasty for one thing (should've chosen a darker light blue) and the tan is drabber than I'd imagined. The size is all wrong too, since I oh-so-cleverly reduced the block size from 400% to 300%. This trick caused the seam allowances to also go off, which caused a cascade of size adjustments. The log cabin piecing really lets you get away with a lot, though, so I think I'm the only one who can tell just how screwed up it is. The not-square pattern also helps in this regard. I'm just praying it doesn't come apart when I wash it.
The back is a nice chocolate brown heavier weight solid, and I haven't decided about the binding yet. Depends on whether I have enough brown left at the end. Now, on to the quilting.
Does anyone else get really caught up in arranging the blocks? I'm thinking I might write a little program to help. It's such a logic puzzle to alternate the colors and the values and make sure no block is the same as its neighbor, plus keeping it all balanced but asymmetrical. I didn't think ahead when I decided which colors to make which blocks, so I think this particular quilt might not have a solution. For example, you can see that I have 2 dark greens and 2 light greens in the same column. This bothers me waaaaay more than it should.
Posted under Sewing/Fabric Crafts at January 29, 2006 01:14 PM
Comments
I love it! Wonderful. I think the key is NOT to get too caught up in worrying about it. I mean, well yes, you have to definitely plan an arrangement, but I think it helps if you do it more instinctively. Stand back and squint at it basically LOL.
Posted by: Angela haglund at January 29, 2006 04:22 PM
How do you plan to quilt it? I need to get started quilting a baby quilt for my soon-to-be-born niece and I'm so intimidated.
Posted by: abbyjane at January 29, 2006 08:20 PM
Looks good! I definitely get caught up in color patterns. Although I use the "stand back and squint" technique, a program would be very interesting!
Posted by: rose at January 29, 2006 09:54 PM
I think it looks great!
Posted by: Nichola at January 29, 2006 10:37 PM
It looks wonderful. I really love the way D.S. quilt tops go together, they are very forgiving and allow you to really play with the colors, its always exciting to see what comes together. I have not starting playing around with placement of the squares on my D.S. quilt top yet, but I may be a likely candidate for spending too much time on something like that, so if you make a program, let me know.
Posted by: Blair at January 29, 2006 10:43 PM
OH my god !! It's so perfect !!! and you know that the 2 dark greens I didn't saw them before you talked about ?!!! So please, just tell you it's so perfect like that !! Smooches !
Posted by: Sandrine (alias Didine!) at January 30, 2006 03:32 AM
Dude, don't sweat it, it looks great! Once it's quilted, it will be just plain old perfect, and everyone will want one but you'll have to decline humbly and say "ah...it's a one of a kind, I rarely reproduce my works" and laugh coyly.
Posted by: sasha at January 30, 2006 10:26 AM
looks wonderful! and i now what you mean about the blocks,I get nutty about them too (but i'm not smart enough to write a program for it-jeez!!)
Posted by: amy k. at January 30, 2006 11:23 AM
this is lovely and symmetrical, it flows...maybe if you stand back..
Posted by: tanya at January 30, 2006 11:52 AM
I think it's beautiful, and yes- I too have been known to stand and stare at small pieces of fabric for hours on end.
Posted by: lyn at January 30, 2006 05:42 PM
OK, maybe I am crazy, but in my happy little thought-picture world, a pink binding would look incredibly cool. Great piecing! I am making a DS quilt... one of these days...
Posted by: homuncula at January 30, 2006 09:46 PM
it looks gorgeous! let us know what you end up doing on the quilting end... i'm definitely right there with you on the rearranging blocks syndrome... sometimes, i just have to learn to let it go!
Posted by: kelly at February 2, 2006 05:09 PM
so lovely! beautiful work!
Posted by: ~mary~ at February 6, 2006 12:02 AM
i'm going to be making that quilt as well altho my colors are wildly different than yours :) what size did you wind up making?
Posted by: carolyn at February 8, 2006 01:11 PM
It is a beautiful quilt. Have you quilted it yet? I just got around to looking at the denyse schmidt book and was surprised that there are hardly any instructions on how to actually quilt the quilt. How did you do it?
Posted by: meg at March 27, 2006 02:16 PM
I just made my first quilt and I used Microsoft Excel to play with the colors/blocks. I made the cells approximately square and then shaded them with colors/patterns to approximate my fabric. I really like the shapes in your quilt.
Posted by: lb at April 21, 2006 12:59 PM