TeresaA

I am a great auntie! Hurrah. My niece is around 6 months and will be coming back to the states in early May. I have been swaying toward making a quilt or making something else for her. This weekend I leaned hard toward making a quilt.

The little girl loves her Horton stuffed toy, so I saw some Dr. Seuss fabric and snatched it up. I thought, oh gee, it will be so easy to make a quilt out of this. I'll do something really simple. (Her family doesn't really understand quilts so I thought better of spending a whole lot of time when the quilt could quite literally be thrown away in a year or two. But I wanted to make a quilt anyway, because they are the people who have EVERYTHING so it is the only way to give something unique.)

Note to self regarding the Seuss print: rainbow prints can make your life tough...really, really tough.

I hemmed and hawed. I literally made blocks for a whole quilt yesterday and then decided I didn't like it with the Seuss fabric

So after auditioning more fabrics, at about 5:00am this morning I thought I had a good plan. The few blocks I laid out together looked great! I liked it, my DH liked it, my quilting artist SIL liked it. Success! But then I started piecing things together and suddenly, success was failure.

The quilt is way too busy. Way too. Do any of you know of tricks to make this arrangement less busy? Or should I just give up on this fabric and make something else..... Yes I have tried putting white blocks between the 9 patches. Looks terrible. Yes, I have added more blocks. I find that the larger the quilt gets, the busier it looks.

Anyway, if you have an aha moment regarding what could help, please let me know. If it's anything too labor intensive, I probably can't do it. I need the quilt done in a couple of weeks. But if it's one of those miracle solutions, I'm all ears.

Picture. [ATTACH=CONFIG]470483[/ATTACH]

Thank you!

Jan in VA

Eliminate the 3 non-blue blocks and see if that helps it visually for you. Use those colors in narrow borders and/or binding. Or......

Try turning the plain blocks over and using the reverse side of the fabric....you paid for both sides, why not use them? Or......

Change out the plain (but printed) blocks with a white or other pale solid color. Or.....

Leave it as is and realize that "busy" for you likely won't be for a child!

Jan in VA

GrammaNan

I would try dark blue sashing about 2 1/2" wide with light blue cornerstones. I definitely think you should keep going with the quilt. It will be cute even if you keep it as is.

YukonViv

Kids need busy, it keeps them visually interested. To me it looks just like the liner pages of a Dr Suess book so its perfect. I say keep going the way you are.

Tartan

Well, I like it how you have it now. It might be busy for an adult quilt but not a child's.

Milli

Yes it can be saved just finish it , it's great for a child, love Dr Seuss .
loves it.

MaryMo

I like it! It will grow with her as she grows. She can pick out the Hortons, and later the other characters. When she is learning colors, she'll be able to find the different colors. I hope she'll be getting all the Dr. Seuss books to go with this quilt.

I agree that a dark blue border would frame it perfectly. I wouldn't change anything about it. She'll love you for many years!

TeresaA

Thanks, all. How about if I do something like this (and also add a column in addition to the ones shown and make it a child's twin size). Then I can create a wide border of Seuss to finish it off?

Is this an improvement? If I solved my own problem I have the board to thank anyway! Writing this down for you helped my brain reset.


[ATTACH=CONFIG]470484[/ATTACH]

BTW, about removing the non-blues, my artistic relatives insisted that I should leave them. They add SPARKLE. I think that's actually true now, but I agree they were an eyesore with the busy quilt.

DogHouseMom

Sashing will help. Thinking white with different color cornerstones.

DogHouseMom

Ha! Yup. We posted at the same time. Love the white sashing