I’ve been taking a quilting class and need to have my top ready for Thursday’s last class when we sandwich the top, batting and backing together and learn a simple machine way of quilting.
But…
The thing is, I’m not in love with the teacher’s design:
It’s the border thing that’s bothering me.
Here are some photos of my quilt in progress. Opinions welcome. Oh, and I should add that I’m not crazy about the colours/fabrics I picked out. This always happens to me. I fall in love with the fabric, think it’s going to be great, start cutting it, sewing it and somewhere in the process of putting it together… I fall out of love with the fabric and question all of my choices. To me, it looks ugly but it could be that my tastes have changed in the last week and I’m really starting to move away from muted shades and favour brighter colours now.
But I digress…
Option 1) Follow the class instruction and use the grey-purple fabric I picked out to use as a 4″ border around each square and for the border (just imagine the carpet is the border for now):
OR
Option 2) do my own thing and sew all the squares together and use the grey-purple fabric for a 4″ (or 6″) border (imagine the border around this):
Because this is the look I really like! I love a scrappy quilt, like this:
from quilthome.com
To follow the teacher’s instructions (and pattern) or do my own thing?
Opinions welcome.
-e
confessions of a frostitute 
I like the second option, but the border in your fabric will probably look better than the teacher’s design.
Opinion from a random stranger: I’d go with your instincts on this. If you use the border strips around each block, it gives a neat contained look like something you could buy in a department store. Without that, with the blocks butted together as in the bottom pic, the design is more exciting. I’m thinking of the way the Gee’s Bend artists made their quilts… the solid blue/grey border around the whole thing will unify the whole thing nicely and draw attention to the energetic chaos of the blue grey strings in the quilt. I think it will look great.
Great comments! Funny thing is, my teacher showed us a book of Gee Bend quilts and said that was her inspiration for the design. Maybe she wanted to do the borders for people new to quilting instead of asking them to make extra blocks (like I did on my own)?
I love the new quilt!! unusual to see those colors..very restful. I am a border afficianado. I like a narrow , relatively bright, the a larger border around it all….looks like a picture framing. And I prefer these without the sashings…just my opinion. Keep scrapping!!
Sue
I like the colors. I like the second option of just adding the purple border to frame it.
However; if you add in the green fabric with the purple to make borders, it would really set off the quilt and balance the lighter colors.
A small purple border with an outside green border would look nice. But, so would the other way as well.