Thursday, October 8, 2020

Block placement - A How To

 Laying out a quilt with scrappy blocks, or blocks of multiple colors can be challenging. I struggle with it and I think it's one of the reasons I pick non-scrappy more than scrappy quilts.



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Today I'm sharing a trick I use to help with the process. How to go from a pretty stack of pieced blocks...




....to a pretty layout and beautiful quilt. Black and white photos. This post is going to be photo heavy for the purpose of showing you how moving a block or two can change what you see.





This was the first layout of Wild Blossoms using Pat Sloan's Morrison Park fabrics. It looks pretty good, but lets switch this to black and white.




It's not too bad, but there's a clump of light blocks and two corners with medium to dark blocks. We want to spread those out a little more evenly if possible.




Layout number 3 or 4.





Better, but it still felt off.



            



One problem with switching to black and white; you can see what needs to be moved, but then find that you can see that there is a block of the same fabric next to where you want to move the other block and you have to rethink your changes.



           



Maybe at this point you think it looks great and it's time to sew. Then you should do so. Quilting is about what appeals to you. I wasn't happy so I kept going.






Twenty-four different layouts later and it was time to just start from scratch, by literally scooping it all into a pile. I was starting to see double. Ha.



              


Almost there.....


               


More pictures and layouts than I want to count later, I had my final layout. Confession. When I got the photos from the photographer I wished I had spread those gold blocks out differently.






In the end though, I think there was a nice spread of color and I love the quilt. That's all that matters really, that in the end YOU love it. So play with your layout, take pictures, but when you feel that it's right, go for it.

Happy Scrappy Stitching!

Jen

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1 comment:

  1. It really is amazing what you see on image rather than real life. The B&W trick is a good one!
    I liked following along in the progress of the layout. Like you, when you got to that final layout, I said, "That's the one!" I think it has to do with how the eye follows a pattern.

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