I may lose a few of you on this one
When last we saw the kaleidoscope quilt we were discussing the vertical vs. horizontal layout.
Vertical was the clear winner among commenters, but Alex and I both vote horizontal, so there you go.
I am going to have a chance to start sewing it tomorrow, and I knew I wanted to tweak it a little before actually putting it together, so today I unrolled it and played with the layout.
I pulled the mattress off my bed and unrolled the batting on that. The triangles had held their positions very well, and although some of them were a bit crumpled, it could have been a lot worse. I don't really want to roll it back up to take to my friend's house tomorrow, though, so there may be a lot of careful taking down and laying out before I go to bed tonight.
Once it was unrolled on the mattress, I raised it up to lean against the banister here in my office, where there's good light and not a lot of traffic. Also, the computer is nearby for music and compulsive E-mail checking.
I started out by adjusting the flow of the first few bands of color so the red didn't climb so high up the side but extended a bit farther across the bottom instead.
The uniformity of this layout has bothered me right from the start - it looks too much like regular, even stripes and not enough like a flowing natural progression. When I got about halfway across the quilt in my layout adjustment, I finally decided to do something about it. I had been imagining a few triangles out of place, and decided to go ahead and do that to see how it looked.
Although it's been very hard to keep individual triangles from jumping out and shaking you by the lapels when you walk by, the overall effect was a definite improvement over what I had begun to think of as a striped shirt.
Aside from repositioning the greens a bit, I left the regular pattern intact on all the dark triangles, while mixing up the lights to eliminate the hard edges between colors.
I'm still not completely satisfied, but I'm not sure I ever would be, so this is probably pretty much how it's going to stay.
And this is how it looks now:
Except that it doesn't really look like that right now. It's actually the opposite:
So let's hear it. Is anybody in favor of mixing it up, or did I lose everybody on that one?
Also, how do you feel about the orientation - does it matter if the light is in the upper left or right corner?
8 comments:
Let me, a non-quilter, be the first to comment.
I do rather like the more mixed-up version,
On the orientation issue:
Being basically left-to-right readers (not that we're reading the quilt, but stick with me) when the light is at the left, my eye travels to the right, and ends up in the dark (as in foreboding) corner. When the (well, my) eye starts at the left in the darker area, and moves to the right, it ends up in the light, which I like, at least on a symbolic basis.
Now if you buy my reasoning (or feeling) it WOULD matter which way you do it if the quilt were to end up in the hands of someone who reads from right to left, i.e. a person from China. (Do I have that right? School was so very long ago...)
Whatever way you do it, it's absolutely beautiful!
I agree with dad on the reading issue and we do read quilts, Dick so the question lands back in your lap, Jen, do you want a happy ending or a sad ending...happy being light, dark being sad. It is much more pleasing (peaceful)to look at with the light on the right. Again I agree with dad, whatever way you do it, it's absolutely beautiful.
PS-Happy Mothers Day
Well, that's good news, since it's already laid out that way.
Although I've been thinking of it as the bright sky shining down on flowers not, you know, All That Is Good and Pure morphing into death and destruction.
But hey, it saves me some work & potential confusion, so that's happy ending enough for me!
I like it mixed up. I also don't think the orientation makes a huge difference. But the mixing it up is great.
Anyone else ever notice how INTERESTING the conversations among this family are?
Hee! Thanks anonymous, I think I speak for all of us when I say we take that as a compliment :)
Although I should clarify that Sandy is a family friend, and refers to "dad" simply because he signs that way.
They all look good, but after studying it hard, the mixed up version is better - the best thing I've 'read' all day :)
I started thinking about whether the dark side should be on the left or right and my brain exploded.
It's going to look so good finished!
Actually, my lapels are more in danger in the mixed-up version. But moreso light to dark. The happy ending version leaves me alone, in that sense. So I can go along with mixed-up, dark to light. The last photo.
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