This was an outright surprise. I was plugging along with the black blocks and had made quite a bit of progress by the end of February. I had envisioned finishing the flimsy by now. I liked the design on the computer and I really liked the individual black blocks. However, when my mom walked into the room and went "Oof", I knew she was expressing what had been niggling in the back of my head. The black on the wall was too busy and overwhelming.
I generated a few new layouts attempting to salvage as many finished blocks as possible. Then I gathered feedback from quilting friends and Reddit. Initially I made more of the grey blocks with dark centers hoping to keep they diamond design. But then I didn't like the white-centered blocks, and ripped and flipped those around (which went back together better than I hoped). At this point, I've committed to pulling apart all the black blocks except for a border around the edge. I hope to finish the "reset" this week, so I can start focusing on the kaleidoscope corners.
I'm guessing I'm about a month behind where I thought I'd be. <sigh> But I think we're back on speaking terms. Onward and upward.
Maybe there's too much contrast between the outer black blocks and the inner gray ones? I like those couple of blocks where you made one "leg" out of gray. That could provide more of a blend as you go from the dark to the lighter blocks. Good luck figuring it out - we know you can do it!
ReplyDeleteI admire your tenacity! My first thought - always looking for the easy way first - would be to keep the blocks as constructed, and change the background - maybe to a warm medium grey to soften the contrast. It might not have worked but it would have postponed all the teeth-grinding I would do while recreating the blocks. But... when I decide to rip back dozens of hours of knitting, I always think, well I like to knit and now I will be able to knit this all over again! So maybe sewing is like that for you?
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