Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Designing my Island Batik Playful Pinwheels Quilt




The Island Batik Ambassador Challenge for May is Playful Paper Piecing.  I knew I wanted to do a star of some kind.  So I started sketching and ended up with the star you see below.  I then put it into Electric Quilter so I could play around with color.  After looking at the star I knew I wanted to add more to it or a border or something.  I just wasn't quite sure what, so I cute out the pieces of a second star and started playing.

One of the things I love about some of the blogs I read is their descriptions of the creative process.  It's really fun to see how other people work their own personal magic.  I started my journey with the idea of doing a broken star where it extends all the way around the edge.  It wasn't my favorite and I moved on.



Next I tried doing a diamond border.  It was okay, but didn't seem like it was worth all the effort it would take to make it.



Next I tried putting diamonds in the corners.  Okay, but not great.



Then I tried putting diamonds off the centers.  I like this a little better than the picture above, but it's still not my favorite.



I tried putting it on point too, but it still didn't quite work.



Next I tried extending one of the sets of diamonds to twice it's original length.  I really liked this!  It was different.  So, now what to do with it.  Below you se it where the original block is still vertical.



In this image below I've tipped the block so the outermost points are at North, West, East, and South.  I like it, but it didn't add much and would make it much more challenging to construct so I decided to skip it.



If one is great, two must be better, right?  Wrong.  I added the extra set of purple and red points, but it made the block messier than I wanted and challenging to construct as well.



Okay, so what if I put an extra set at the tips?  Nope.  It spreads the block out, but didn't really add anything.



What if I made two?  OH...I like it!  Now to pick fabric and create it!  Come back Saturday to learn all about how I constructed this quilt.


My son has decided this quilt needs to be called Playful Pinwheels.  I like it.

Happy designing!
Suzy

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