Using a Design Wall

I designed Collaboration quilt with pencil and graph paper. After creating the basic sketch, I shaded the darker value squares and chose fabrics for each round. At that point I could have cut and sewn the quilt without further thought. But, I didn’t.

Instead of fully relying on my paper plan, I cut the quilt working from the center out and arranged the cut pieces on my design wall. A design wall allows the fabrics to speak to me along the way. Rather than following the prescribed route, sometimes we changed course. I am sure for the better.

Since you enjoyed seeing one of those path corrections last time, I thought I would show you a few more color choice processes facilitated by my design wall today.

At this stage, my “Trip Around the World” rounds do not circumnavigate the entire quilt. Now I am working on the corners, specifically adding the round that should come after the pink rectangles According to my quilt plan, a round of the dark purple moths should come next; but, as soon as I place the purple beside the pink, I know that it looks wrong. Too sweet. Too girly.

Instead of the purple moths, I decide to use this olive green print. I love how that yellow-olive color comes to life beside the pink. It also inspires me to swap the beige print in the quilt center for a tiny olive print. I am happy to see more green tones in the quilt, particularly these olives which feel closer to the green and blue lagoon vibe I wanted all along.

Here is the work-in-progress after adding the olive elements and another minty-aqua round. That delicious minty-aqua solid is Soft Teal from Tilda Solids. Definitely a favorite!

As I fill out the corners of the quilt, a few more changes emerge. I have found a home for the purple moth print as a plus shape along with the blue pluses. This works well since I don’t have enough blue to form all the pluses, and it’s always nice to repeat every color and/or fabric in a quilt like this for a sense of cohesion.

The above version shows a diagonal row of minty aqua solid squares between the dark green and gray squares. I decided that the contrast here was too great. Below I have swapped that minty aqua for the purple stripe print.

In this final version of the quilt corner, I have also added green seed fabric at the outer edges of the plus round. Opting for this medium value fabric in place of the low value one makes the plus round feel more continuous. I would have preferred to use more of the green fabric that forms the squares between the pluses, but I was out. When I run into fabric shortages I very often make such a substitution. I almost never order more fabric.

When I thought that the design phase of Collaboration was finished, I took the photo at left. Then I noticed one last thing that felt jarring. Can you spy the single small difference between these two images?

In the final image at right, I have swapped the dark green square at the center left edge of the quilt for a much lighter green. The new square blends into the green plus round. Even though my quilt sketch really did have the dark value square, and I liked it then, in real life the dark value square is only distracting.

Thank goodness that I arranged this whole quilt before sewing one stitch. And, I am so thankful to have a design wall in my sewing room.

Next stop - sewing!