So, raise your hand if you have ever made a bad color choice on a quilt. Good to know I'm not alone! I made a bad color choice and have been correcting it for the last week or so, and will be for a little while longer. What else was there to do? Here is the original block:
To choose colors, we spent some time with the Hoffman color panel. It worked great! I am never cutting this panel up! I bought fabric and got to work.
The pattern is really well organized and very easy to follow, though it does have a few quirks. You'll probably want to make the triangles differently, for example. Although the design looks complicated, the blocks are easy to make and the pattern is very detailed. (My only tiny problem with it is that there will be bias edges on some of the blocks along the perimeter of the quilt, but I plan to stay-stitch the edges anyway, so it's not a big deal.)
The pattern calls for 4 "creams" as backgrounds, but I decided to go ahead and use all one color for the backgrounds. That was my bad decision. I made a bunch of blocks (not all!) and you can see that they turned out to be pretty bland. I knew there was something wrong but couldn't put my finger on it.
Yep, it was the decision to use the same color for all of the backgrounds.
So, what to do but get some more fabric and grab the seam ripper? This is the new block:
The ripping has been zero fun, but I think it's totally been worth it. (And yay! I get to stitch miters again!) I chose the deeper yellow to match their wedding flowers, and together the whole mass of blocks reminds me a lot of the bouquets. Adding the yellow also gives the quilt a lot more life.
I'm a lot happier with this quilt now, and I bet they will be too! I know there's a lot of ripping to do, but there really aren't a lot of changes to be made, so they can be stripped in pretty easily. Still no fun, but there's a big payoff in the end.
May your color choices all be perfect so you don't have to follow in my footsteps! I'm off to rip some more!
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6 comments:
Ach, that takes a bit of the fun out of the project! Sometimes these things don't really makes themselves known until your are a ways into it. The yellow definitely fixes the issue tho. I hope you don't have too many blocks to be take apart. Looking forward to seeing your progr as on this. If one of my kids selected that pattern I would have said they were out of print and not even one was left in this universe. It looks too complicated!
So annoying when that happens. Great that you recognised the problem and fixed it regardless of the work, there is always a temptation to carry on thinking 'it will be great when it all comes together'. I agree with Bernie about the yellow, it takes it to a new dimension. You are so brave, I's not a pattern I would have attempted.
Happens to us all! Too often to keep track! But you made the perfect fix and I can't wait to see it completed! It will be gorgeous! XO
It's always frustrating when that happens, but you'll be glad that you took the time to make all the changes.
At least you were able to recognise the problem and fix it early. It would have been horrible to have ended up with a finished quilt that you didn't like. This quilt will be amazing when finished!
Somehow I missed this post (and a few others, I'm afraid--I've been a bit distracted, and absent from blogland lately). It's discouraging when you realize that something isn't working out as planned, but I think it will be so worth it to listen to that little voice in your head and make the changes. You really have brought those blocks to life with the addition of the yellow. And given my recent swatch experiences, I'm really intrigued with your Hoffman fabric swatch panel! How neat that it's printed on fabric that you can squish and bend anyway you want! I had not seen this before.
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