head scratcher

 

when d4 turned 8, we went fabric shopping. she picked out some fabrics she liked and i helped her fill in with some coordinating pieces so we could make a "two dozen, please" quilt, like her sister made, which is 12 fat quarters cut in half and arranged in a 3 x 8 grid. 

i thought her red, navy, papyrus, and purpley-pink palette was cute, and it was going to be so fun to have my cute little quilt buddy make her very own full-size quilt.

well, that was a few years ago.

the little 8 year old is about to turn 16 this month.

i have to look back and wonder why that quilt never got made. then i consider the timing of the purchase and i kind of understand. not too long after that birthday, her daddy had a rock climbing accident and our lives turned upside down for many months. and then ... you, know. stuff happens, other projects take priority, and suddenly you find yourself 8 years down the road.

this past weekend she and i were the only ones home for a whole day and i got to thinking about that quilt we never made. i went on a hunt in the nooks and crannies of my over-stuffed sewing room and found them squashed in a hidden basket.

we considered the fabrics and i suggested we make a "paint lake" quilt with them. it's also an easy quilt, but has a little more interest than my "two dozen, please" pattern. i thought it would be fun.

she wanted a nap.

the "paint lake" quilt actually requires 18 fabrics, so while she was napping i pulled more fabrics to coordinate with the original stack. my paint lake has some really bold, bright colors and a lot of low-volume. it's very high-contrast, so most of the new fabrics i pulled were low-volume. i thought we had a good thing going.

when she woke up, she was less than enthused. i got her to press the fabrics so i could cut them for her, and she told me how sewing really "isn't her thing," that she thinks she liked shopping for the fabrics back in the day but that she doesn't really want to make anything with them. but she pressed for me anyway and i got cutting. 

we used my original "fall paint lake" quilt (still being qulited) to help us layout the pieces for this one.

when we were done, we didn't love it.

and now i'm at a loss what to do.

i think that happens sometimes with quilts or ideas in general. on the one hand, i'm perfectly fine just putting all the pieces in the scrap piles and moving on. i don't get much quilt time these days and i don't want to waste my precious time on a project my heart isn't into. or spend all the time hold my daughter's feet to the fire on a project she doesn't want to do or doesn't like any more.

she told me that in addition to sewing "not being her thing," she doesn't think she really liked the fabrics in the first place. i went back and reread my origianl post about her buying these fabrics and it looks like she did indeed pick them herself (with a little guidance) and that she liked them. but that's not the way she remembers it.

so now what?

do we rearrange and edit, try to switch out some fabrics?

this morning, with fresh eyes, i pulled up the paint lake hashtag to get perspective on what i like about the pattern and what might be wrong with our version.

here are some i like and think work well:

i like it best when the colors aren't blocked together in the 3 strip arrangements the quilt calls for.

i tried adding some more strong red and taking out a few of the lightest prints i added in to increase the numbers. all her original prints have been maintained:

 i also auditioned a blush pink piece, which color appears in three of the prints.

awaiting a verdict from d4.

today she tells me she does like it after all, but i think she's just trying to please me.