Quilt Layout Evolution

I spent some time this week playing around with the block layout from that Sugar Pine quilt I mentioned a few blog posts ago. That quilt featured alternating quarter-square triangles and squares. In the pattern, the designer mentioned that she also alternated the placement of “light” and “medium/dark” squares by row.

I started by making a bunch of blocks and laying them out in the same configuration. I kept things simpler by sticking with one color family.

All fabrics came from the stash and included everything from the light background prints in the quarter-square triangles to the black prints, some of which were made into QSTs and some into squares. However, I felt like the black squares were talking too loudly in the layout:

Sometimes a B&W photo is helpful:

I made two adjustments. First, I pulled all the black squares and set them aside. I left the black QSTs, because I felt they added a bit of flavor. Next, I pulled all the “light” QSTs in the alternating “light” rows and replaced them with medium/dark QSTs, and a “square in a square'“ pattern emerged.

I decided I liked this better. It isn’t the same layout as the original Sugar Pine design, but that layout seemed too amorphous to me. I liked this design enough to sew it together:

Scrappy but cohesive. I think it does need borders. I tend to avoid borders only because I think they require a separate quilting pattern from the center, and sometimes I don’t want to work that hard. However, I have a pile of QSTs left over. I’d like to incorporate them into some kind of border instead of putting them into the orphan blocks box.

I’ll play around with this a bit more, but I picked up my large Drunkard’s Path die on Friday and I am itching to experiment with some circles.

I also put grommets in the sunshade:

I spaced them roughly 12” on-center (can you tell I am married to a builder?), although I suggested to the husband that he not measure too carefully because I might have fudged a bit. This is a sunshade, not a quilt destined for a competition. He will get the hooks put up and then I can hang this and determine where to put the hem.