wip: sherbet pips quilt, blocks 1-12

On Sunday I knocked out a couple more blocks and decided that it was time to see them together.  I’m a little disappointed.  I’m not really sure why–I love the blocks individually, and I really liked seeing the first half dozen together…but I was underwhelmed when I put them up on my makeshift design board.  I’m going to just keep going, though (my plan is a 4×5 grid, so 20 blocks all together).  With my dream on quilt I changed course and looking back, I’m not sure why.  I know I strongly didn’t like the mock-up at the time, but looking back I much prefer the original version to what I ended up with.  I think I suffer from Middle-of-the-Project Syndrome where it’s not looking like what you had in your head, but you’re too in it to see that it’s still pretty.  So we’ll just keep on trucking along and hopefully I’ll love it eventually.

This is one of those quilts that is going to be a nightmare to settle on a final arrangement.  In order to make it look ‘random’ a LOT of elements need to be balanced.  For example, the blocks with gray in their outer ring, the blocks with green as tiny strips versus entire outlines, the ‘pictures’ at the heart of the blocks and then of course just the overall balance and flow.  Just when you have one settled, another of the elements pops out as trouble.

Now that we’re just past the halfway point, I’m also trying to decide if I want to hack into the fat quarter stack of sherbet pips so that some of the outter rings can be pips fabric, too, instead of just the inner rings.  I’m torn because on the one hand, I like the idea of the pips not being restrained to the inner layers…but on the other hand I like the idea of really working that layer cake and keeping the fat quarter pack ‘safe’ for another project.  My hoarding tendencies are going strong!