Monday, January 2, 2012

Orca Bay Big Reveal... Parts 7/8


The grand finale of Orca Bay, Bonnie Hunter's 2011 Mystery Quilt, has been revealed.  As expected, it is a beautiful, beautiful quilt, well worth all the cutting and sewing, cutting and sewing we participants have all been doing since the week preceeding Thanksgiving.  I always enjoy Bonnie's mysteries so much... watching each individual's quilt as it unfolds.. each one is different and likewise beautiful in it's own way.

Here is a picture of my progress so far..  With all components finished, I have assembled this much of the quilt..

I am, however in a quandry about my little periwinkle blue string blocks, which form the cornerstones of the pieced sashing.  They play a big role in the way the eye "travels" around the quilt and mine are just too monochromatic, in my opinion.  I do not feel that you can actually "see" the direction of the strings because the blocks are so tonal, even though I used a wide variety of fabrics when making them.  And although I generally love periwinkle blue with red and white, I am wondering if the periwinkle is a vibrant enough color or if I should have gone with something more in the jewel tones.  What do you think??  IN ADDITION, now that I have three rows of them together, I see that although I have them all traveling in the same respective direction, as I should, they are wrong!!  The "strings" should be pointing TOWARDS the light Ohio Stars, instead of away!

So, my possible solutions.

1.  Do nothing.. which isn't going to work for me, because although I am NOT a perfectionist, I know I am not going to be happy with it the way it is..

2.  Take apart.. turn the blue blocks in the right direction and re-assemble. (Which will ease my mind because I know it is made correctly, but isn't going to change the overall appearance that much because the blocks will still be fairly monochromatic with no real contrast amongst them, so they still won't give the eye that direction of travel they should.

3.  Split the blue blocks and add a few new strings with more contrast, sew them back up, re-square them and put them back in the quilt.

4.  Make 64 NEW blocks in a more vibrant color (I am thinking greens in the teal family or gold/cheddar) and not use the periwinkle blocks in this quilt at all.

What do you all think??
Posted by at

5 comments:

  1. I Quilt for FunJanuary 2, 2012 at 7:03 AM

    My two cents -- yep -- you want do something if you're not happy with it. Too much work to compromise. Other suggestions - how about auditioning some fabric from your stash to see which color(s) make your heart sing? I might be tempted to just use a directional stripe and not re-piece all the strings. These little gems are causing a lot of "hmmmm" comments right now -- we all love them but they can make or break the quilt in some ways. You may want to read other comments on link-up to see what others are pondering. I'm likely to leave mine and hope they bring me joy when I lay it out. I fear mine could be a bit tonal as well -- didn't use a lot of brights as that's not my normal palette. GOOD LUCK. Jan

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kucki68January 2, 2012 at 8:20 AM

    I think gold/cheddar would look fantastic with your blogs, keep the periwinkle ones, you might find a home for them in the future.

    ReplyDelete
  3. LeeanneJanuary 2, 2012 at 12:37 PM

    It is your quilt so if you are happy with it go with it. On someone elses blog they were considering neutral squares rather than the blue strings.
    Did you have any problems with the geese/ blue string rows being longer than the Ohio Star/ geese rows?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Helen in the UKJanuary 3, 2012 at 12:59 AM

    Like you, I would have to change the orientation of the string blocks now you've spotted that it isn't as Bonnie intended. Whilst you are doing all that unpicking it makes sense to change them for something you are happier with. Audition the other colours and see what 'sings' to you :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. LuAnnJanuary 9, 2012 at 6:24 AM

    I think that slicing each of those little string blocks in a couple different places and adding a couple of darker strings would give you the diagonal look to the block and they would still be mainly the periwinkle color that you like. I think if you did it that way and then retrimmed, it wouldn't take long. I have also seen a couple of these quilts that have used a striped fabric in place of the string blocks. I agree that you have to do something if you aren't happy with how it looks now. Oh...and welcome to blogland. I have become a follower.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)