Design Floor Friday - IMPROV - The Challenge Continues

Welcome to another edition of Design Floor Friday!!!  If you follow along in my quilting journey, some of you may recall that I recently celebrated the completion of a challenge quilt (top.)  Being a thoughtful and kind quilter, I really try to LISTEN to my quilts.  Would you like a border?  No border?  What will it be?

My IMPROV Challenge quilt became uncommunicative when I got to this stage of the game:

At first, I gave a special scrap a chance, but I wasn't sure that worked.  The colors were right.  However, it felt too light and airy for the body of the quilt:

It was at this point that I took a poll...

I asked several of my blogging and real lifeline friends to weigh in on borders for my quilt.

Here is what they had to say:

Judy @ Busy Hands are Happy Hands - "Hmmmm?  I might put a scrappy border on it.  The Gees Bend Quilters did!  Not too wide or I might just bind it.  It would probably depend on my stash!"

"Whatever you decide....it will be GOOD!"

LeeAnna @ Not Afraid of Color  - "striped fabric... if you have a stripe of many colors fabric"

me:

leeanna:  oooo you have good striped fabrics... all match, so I looked at them to
see which one took too much attention from the center... the one on my
photo's left seems to fit values wise. will you put a little strip in as
breathing room?

me: Are you talking about the mostly light yellow one!?

I was actually kind of contemplating one of each! LOL!!!

Not as wide as shown, though. I just wanted you to be able to get a better sense of the colors. 

leeanna: one of each is very improv of you...

me: Yes. Does that mean you hate the idea? That sounds a touch evasive.  :P

leeanna: well... I think this is a fun center and deserves to star in the show. I'd do one fabric personally. I'd put a buffer of something like my favorite color in it. or black and white. Then I would use the slightly softer colored one on the left, maybe piecing in some hst's at each corner to make sort of a framed star point. Then a bright fun binding of different colors on each side, primary colors like red, blue, yellow and bright grass green.

that's me...

as to putting four different fabrics on the borders, I think they'd be busy, not in the best way. They might fight to get one's attention, when the star of the show is the fun fabrics in the center.

That said, it doesn't mean it would be wrong

Deb @ Happy to be Scrappy - 

About then, I switched gears and worked on another project for a while.

Until I heard from...

Needleb @ Ravelry - "possibly stripey"

B: If you use the bird fabric it needs a skinny inner border.

me: One or ALL the stripes?

B: One.

B:Might like the border fabric best if there was a stopper inner border.

Hard call.

I like the stripe on the right.

me: Hmm... working on another project right now. I'll look at it again later. Thanks for weighing in.

Knittingsuek @ Ravelry - "Cute, cute, cute. Hard to pick options without knowing what the inner border is."

me: White or gray inner border, but I am seriously thinking of using on strip of each stripe for the borders.

Next, I consulted my in-home design assistant...

DA: "I think the multi-fabric striped border really fits the theme of the quilt."

me: If I use each of those fabrics, there are still some options for arrangement.

DA: I'm not sure I understand.

me: One strip on each side. One strip on each side, applied log cabin style. Corner stones at the corners or "cornerstones" at the plus points with each strip wrapped around the corner of the quilt top. SEW any options!

DA: I kind of like the idea of taking the quilt in a new direction. It fits.

me: Thanks! I'm still not sure what I'll do.

Thanks for joining me on this journey to a completed challenge quilt.  Come back next week (month? year?) to see if I managed to get it bordered, quilted, and bound.

Until next time...

Quilts can be SEW challenging!!!