What is a Well-planned Quilt?

A well-planned quilt is not mine.  It started off with definite direction and even the quilting designs made it to paper.  They didn't all make it onto the quilt.  Instead, improvisation and a bit of ripping rearranged the designs and even more were created.  Every quilt throws up a few challenges and they say that is good for your brain to keep it from dissolving into old age.  Today is my birthday and I am thankful that I can still write, sew, and research with gladness and joy.  Cleaning house is another story!

Have you ever had the creative side of  your brain get stuck in a rut?  Mine did this week.  My brain was stuck on creating a single quilting motif that would encompass a split triangle.  None of my ideas felt right.  They were too heavy.  They competed with the main motif in a larger, center triangle.  It made me restless.  Bad sign.  I have mostly learned to listen, ponder and wait for the light bulb to blink on.  I did and it did...finally.

The part of the quilt I am working on.

The problem child here is outlined with a white stroke.   I was trying to create one motif for the split triangle.  It finally dawned on me that I designed them to be separate (see the color difference?).  So now I will be doing one motif in the dark half and some background, texture quilting on the red half.  Don't worry about the big red triangle in the center (outside of the white stroke).  It has its own design that mirrors one on the other side of the red border.  I just needed to change my perspective.

What does this do for my quilt?  There is now a line of quilted triangles that are in the same orientation along the border and will have similar (not exact) quilting designs with the same color threads.  Visualize the main quilt below this border.  They line up and look nice.  The red half triangle will slip into the background with nothing but texture to define it. It will not compete with the colored piecing.  It will also make that colored piecing stand out.  Happy days.  Now to see how it works.

Sew some happy seams this week.  I wish you good planning with space for creativity.