Ormes Inspired For the Finish

So... How bout a hundred pictures of the recently completed 'Ormes Inspired' quilt top? It was one of those spring days where it was overcast one minute and blazingly bright and sunny the next. Hopefully you can figure out the true color of the quilt eventually if you look at enough pictures!

Ormes Inspired 

This quilt top was started back in August of 2019. Sort of a spur of the moment project but then, not really. I had been eyeing this pattern for a very long time and in fact had recently gotten permission from the very talented artist Jane Ormes. Even then I was a bit dubious that it could be done. So much drawing. Trying to make all fit proportionately. Eek! The subtleties were marvelous. Pretty sure that would be way beyond my meager capabilities. Such a large, large applique background! Hands cramping just thinking about it! But somehow I got up the gumption one day and just dove in. Took it one step at a time and kept the decisions small. 

Working on borders

You know how sometimes there's a quilt that won't let you be? Eventually you find yourself starting it {almost in spite of yourself}, thinking, 'Oh well, if it ends up looking terrible, I'll just hand it off as a comfort quilt! Surely someone will appreciate it!' One decision after another, a very few 're-do's' and finally, the entire applique center was finished in April of this year. Now what? Well, it was a very odd shape, almost 10 inches wider than it was long. Not a good look for a quilt unless it's meant to hang on a wall! So then I was left contemplating borders. Which I love and adore. Easy, right?

Needing a change!

This one was such a puzzle. I almost didn't dare to put a border on it because it was so good without. But then it was driving me crazy that one of my quilts would basically have to be put on a bed sideways in order for it to look all right. Or even if used on someones lap, the design would always end up presenting cockeyed. Somehow I ended up coming up with the idea of a narrow coping border to frame the quilt and ease the transition into a more formal looking border. The coping border fabric was deliberately chosen in a print that created a lot of movement and play in the color changes. Perfect colors actually! Love that floral so much even though my youngest daughter was a little iffy about it. That part made me very happy!

Okay, now it seems like a finish...

Then I plowed ahead with the short, brick-like border that seemed promising, at least initially. The design was simple, not something that appeared likely to compete with the middle of the quilt. {Little did I know!} I liked how it was versatile in regards to using up almost all of the colors in the quilt without a lot of complex piecing, that it would be oh-so-simple to add on a second row, top and bottom. Sometimes adding borders on two sides of a quilt and not the others just increases the awkwardness factor. This seemed doable. All the single-fabric borders that I auditioned fell very flat or had that entirely-too-formal look that makes some quilts look ordinary and dull.

Somewhere along the line, it also occurred to me that adding a random white brick could essentially ease the stark white background into the border. A little bit better flow from inside to out would/could? help lesson the rigid framing that borders often immediately create. That was good. I really wasn't trying to lasso the entire quilt into a tight little cubby, just stretch out the {whole quilt} sizing just enough to make it more user friendly.*sigh...  Overall, it probably came down to the fact that I just couldn't think of anything better.

Liking this upper corner

I should have known when I first auditioned the bricks, but you know how it is. I was on a mission to get the borders figured out and stitched together! It wasn't until the second day of working on them that I finally took a good long look at the quilt--all the it, laid out fairly flat on the floor with the first row of bricks SEWN {of course} onto the quilt. And that's when I panicked. My beautiful, colorful, complimentary border had in effect, made the entire thing look child-like. 

Still in love with the applique

It was busy. Loud. Circus-like.... And so I paced and I pondered. Why did I ever think working in these particular colors would be a good idea? So out of my comfort zone! And so I brought in a daughter to give me her opinion. Which she didn't want to do and pretty much questioned why I even ever ask for her opinion because she almost always likes what I end up doing anyway! {She reads this blog and will be mentally telling me to shut up anytime now.} 

The thing is, what I needed to happen was to 'put voice' to what I was feeling when looking at the border. Saying it out loud was important. Questioning the validity of my feelings was imperative. There WAS something wrong. What was it? Struggling to put it all into words ultimately helped clarify the problem and eventually lead me to a solution. It helps tremendously to have a sounding board! We all know that! Sometimes it doesn't even matter what 'they' say, so much as it matters that we're actually just taking the time to listen to our quilts. Okay, so that was confusing. But you probably get the gist. I couldn't have got to a solution so quickly without her.

The problem corner

Anyway, long story short is that I knew there wasn't any point in reverting back to a one-fabric border idea. No matter what color it ended up with, the look would only succeed in dumbing down the entire quilt. After a bit of time, I found the lighter black text fabric and started playing around with ideas that involved using some of the already pieced together border. At first it seemed pretty hopeless, but I didn't give up. There was just a germ of an idea that somehow that particular fabric could work magic that a much darker black couldn't manage. Or any color. Or white, which I did actually contemplate for longer than I want to admit to. But seriously. White? Doesn't that take it right back to 'wall hanging'? Why not just get rid of the borders altogether?

Everything looks good from here though!

You might think that I missed the boat by a mile, but this border is so much better than what it looked like before. I like it a lot. Like, A LOT! Yes, I'm a bit disappointed in how obnoxiously colorful the outside border is. Not what I intended at all! On the other hand, I'm absolutely delighted with how easy it was to add a little bit of that darker fabric in {here and there}, and change the focal point from the busy border right back to the center of the quilt where it belongs. It took time for sure. That seam ripper of mine and I have had another falling out, we might not recover.*wink

Wish you could see the upper left corner better!

The only thing that I couldn't totally settle about, would be the larger black rectangle in the far left bottom corner. It looks better when the quilt is laying down than when it's hanging up. How weird is that? Oh no, not in the pictures, could never get a good enough angle to show you. But go ahead, I know you want to. Tell me. What do I need to do different there?  Do I need to take that out and make it more narrow? One row thick instead of the two? Go back to the colorful bricks completely? Make an every-other black/color corner in that area? I won't promise to change anything but I'll definitely listen!

Satisfied with this corner too...

'Cuz I'm open to ideas. It's not packed away yet, still simmering on the countertop in the quilt room. The rest of the border area are pretty much set in stone now though. Don't bother instigating any change there! One of the ideas my daughter and I discussed was the possibility of adding a word down there in that black hole, um, rectangle... Not sure how that won't busy the quilt up even more, but it's something I'm willing to contemplate.

Uh huh, I knew it beyond my expertise to figure this out....

In the mean time, this quilt is giving me the side-eye for not creating a border that adequately honors and makes the applique shine. It could have been better. But maybe not during Corona-crazy days. Perhaps this is as good as it gets!