Diamonds in Blue

You might remember that in my 'Jane's Addicted' quilt I'm making a large diamond out of diamonds and they are all going to be in medium blues. I had re-sorted my blues and narrowed down the choices for the diamonds, pre-cut a bunch of templates, and got back to sewing. Securely ensconced in my organized high, I was feeling great about finishing good ole' shutterbug. Look how many many (many) pieces it has. Didn't it turn out nicely...? well - 

a diamond in blue. great!

nope. it's concentric squares in blue.
totally forgot to reverse the background and blue on this one.

ugh! to try to prevent this tragedy from ever happening again... I got out the roadmap...
Hey, no one is forcing me to make this design process so challenging, but if
I'm going to do it like I envisioned, I guess it's time to quit winging it and get my house in order.

Now, I'll bet you were guessing I couldn't possibly put up another post featuring a spreadsheet. well... you guessed wrong!  I ramped up the spreadsheet, pulling in all block names from the alphabetical listing on the dear jane site and started filling in the wave/motif info. for each block, starting with diamonds. Now I'll be able to sort by anything and use this as a planning tool and not just a recording-as-i-go tool. No more wire hangers!

Jane's Addicted to Process.

...of course i had to redesign it.

 
Once I decided I wanted to make this quilt, I wondered if there was a way to keep the overall look and feel of the quilt - to faithfully reproduce (most of) the blocks, but tweak the block placement to emphasize the "trip around the world" pattern at the heart of the design...

So here's a picture of the original Jane A. Stickle quilt. Isn't it beautiful?
I traced over the concentric diamonds that create the "trip around the world" pattern.
Since there is a wide range of values in the blocks, especially since many of the fabrics have faded,
the color scheme of the "trip" effect is a bit hard to see at first.

An easy way to check the "value" of something is to neutralize the color...
I converted all the blocks in the dear jane software to one single color
so I could see the light/dark (value) more clearly. Squinting helps, too.
With the color gone, the motifs start talking to you.

Hello, circles and diamonds, light and dark...

solids and 9-patches, and X'es light and dark...

central motif (applique), asymmetrical, stars, etc.

My worksheet:  testing out a new layout using repositionable colorless blocks... (I printed out and cut up the blocks and hit the backs with a scrapbooking adhesive and it worked great... a little the worse for wear now...) Once I had a good sense for the motif groupings and values of the blocks, I started playing with a new layout based on motif and value. e.g., there are approximately x# of diamond blocks - where could I place those that would make the most sense?

Lightbulb. the blocks with a diamond motif could
form a giant diamond and the X blocks could form a giant X.
At this point I was starting to think all my geeking out on this was starting to pay off.

close up...

A clean version of a redesign... This shows the general block placement I'm going with, but not color scheme (for example, all the diamonds will be in blue.) Since I love the overall color balance of the original quilt and want to try to keep that feeling, I am using a lot of tans and browns, pinks, blues and greens... Some other plans... I'm "righting" the basket, (I actually think it's adorable on-end, but it keeps making me want to turn my head sideways...) I'm boldly replacing the blocks I think are ugly... (blasphemy), and trying to keep the block design as close to the original as possible without reproducing "mistakes" (blasphemy). There's an elements/symbol thing running down the center column: there's  rain, snow, star, earth, sun, and moons. I am using shirtings for  background which could potentially ruin any increased balance I'm achieving with rearranging the blocks... So we will just have to wait and see how it all turns out!