Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Creatively Stumped

My block came from Laila yesterday, and if I wasn't sure what to do when I first saw it posted, I really don't know now! It's done in colors that do not even exist in my box of crayola's. I don't own much in pastels, certainly not pale mint green or pale pink. It kind of reminds me of colors I decorated my first house in 16 years ago. On the bright side, the embroidery on the block done by Laila and Anne is beautiful. I know I probably don't want to embroider on my border because it won't look nearly as good as their's!! So, my quandry is how do I make the four pyramid shapes that Laila added, which are in 4 different colors, look cohesive with the block, and "tone" down the busyness of the block??? What about those pink corners...how do I make that a little more cohesive too without cutting them off?? (you can tell I really dislike pale pink!)
All comments welcome. I posted a picture of one concept I have sketched up above. My thought is to make the last border darker to help ground the block and settle it's busy nature. I tried to make the 4 corners look like little flower planters. I may consider embroidering flowers there too, but that is not decided yet. Laila sent me that lovely Pepto pink that I "should" incorporate a little of into the border. But how???
HELP!!

9 comments:

Angelines Artero said...

Beautiful blog. Could you put a translator in your blog? Regards from Spain

Angelines Artero said...

My English is bad too, but I´ve put a Babel Fish translator free. Everybody can read my blog. Regards

Tami @ Lemon Tree Tales said...

Oooh I like the idea of making those four stronger colors into flower planters. That's great! Hmm, what to do about the pale pink? My first thought would be to simply add a triangle to either side of the pale pink squares so that they become four larger triangles.

Janey said...

Hmm you have a tricky one. I like what you came up with and since she wants to use that pink how about in the outer border you have as blue. The blue may be a little to dark, but hey what do I know. Can't wait to see what you end up with.

Mom said...

yea, Tami, I thought of that too, but the problem is that there is applique on one of those pink squares...What else could be done??

jovaliquilts said...

Could you use the pale pink where you show brown in your sketch? And not such a dark blue? It would draw the color out to the borders. Pastels are not my colors, either, but it seems to be a pastel quilt!

Tami @ Lemon Tree Tales said...

Oh, what about using a little bit of that pink as a piping between the jewel triangles of your planter and the bottom gold/brown color? It would be just a little highlight that would tie the pastel back into play.

floribunda said...

I like the first one a lot... and you could always break your own rule and just leave out the pale pink! Or send it along for binding?
(yikes -- the anti-spam thing has about 12 letters in it tonight!)

MeganZ said...

I love the blue -- it's perfect. If you need to work the pink in, what if the flower pots were pink? The blue would still de-sugar-ify it, if you know what I mean. :)

I made a sampler quilt once that was mostly peach and rose, and did all the binding and borders and sashing strips in dark blue. It really worked out well, the contrast between the pastels and the richer color.