the beginnings…

for my goddaughter for her first communion. she likes pink and red. her room is mostly pink. so I am going with red with some pink. that might change because I tend not to choose fabrics as I go when making a bigger quilt. I tried pulling all the fabrics first, but I change my mind as I go, so trying to figure out all the fabrics up front is a waste of time. for me.

This was my original idea for a block (there are actually two block here, but you know what I mean):

each of the 4 squares, within a big square is 5.5 in square. these are made by sewing together 5 strips of fabrics, about 23-24 in long (a little bit more than 4 times the size of the small square), then cutting that into 5.5 in squares. I wanted to orient smaller squares in this way, to get the “cross” in the middle. the idea came from a wallpaper design in one of the scenes on the Defenders show. I finished these two just before I went to get L from school. As I was preparing to go, i would peek into the room, from as far as I can, to look at the design. I do this with every new patchwork that makes it on the design wall. I am “checking it out”, try to “feel” it. This one did not feel well. I did get the cross in the middle, but the other darker stripe made it look a bit like swastika. My hubby agreed. no good.

So I though of two possible solutions: first one would completely change the design – like so:

I liked this. But I still wanted to see if I could go with the original design. So I created a new block, but this time I ordered fabrics from darkest to lightest, like so:

I liked this one too. So I took one of the first two blocks I made, ripped it, reordered and sewed it back together:

I liked this too. I had time to make another one, so I can leave it on the wall and “feel” it:

The process of “feeling” it, is very scientific. As mentioned, it involves me looking at the design wall from various distances and angles during a certain period of time. Sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. It also involves taking my glasses of or squinting. Or taking a picture of it and then making it very small. Or taking a blurred picture. Sometimes I keep it on for a few days, while I work on something else until I am sure what I think of it.

This is what it looks from far. I am starting to like it, so I am going to make a few more blocks. I like how if you look at it from very far and even squint a little… the lines seem to be a bit curved. Try, squint. It gives it a nice motion… I named it too: windmolen quilt. winmolen is dutch for windmill. I had to look it up.