Do you ever do a major design change mid-quilt??
 

I had have been working on a Storm at Sea made from the table clothes (batik that we scallop cut the edges) from my daughter's wedding. The colors are purple (lt. and dark) and a darker, royal blue with a blue/lavender mix and then to get some variety, an almost white batik with a little blue swirl. I had put this in EQ7 several ways, had tried it out with a pattern from a guild class, had borrowed a friend's pattern file on the Storm at Sea. After deciding to use the pattern from the guild class cause it was a 12" block, I have been diligently piecing the units and trimming. Was just finishing up the side pieces (with the diamonds in royal blue and the corner pieces in the almost white batik) when I realized that my color placement may NOT give me the optical illusion of a circle! Yikes! So I got back on EQ7 and decided to adjust to 9" blocks and only have the diamond side units on 2 sides, which pulls the design into the circular illusion better. But that means some how cutting another 130 main squares plus more of the diamond units out of my fabric! I gave up for today, but think I have enough of the right color batiks. So bummed-thought I was about ready to sew blocks together, but it's back to the cutting table.

I have completely halted progress on a quilt that I was doing. I was working on a star surround quilt and have about 7 blocks done. Then I realized I just really didn't care for the fabric choices or the time each block takes. I MAY work on it again when I feel the need for something to do. I'm still too new and I think I bit off more than I can chew with this. Maybe when I learn more tricks and tips I will pick it back up!

I would probably do two separate quilts. Sometimes things look much better when it's done, you walk away, and then come back to it after awhile. Worse case scenario you can donate the quilt you don't like to a good cause. Someone will love the quilt. I just think I would be less frustrated finishing it, over restarting.

Oh yeah!! I'm liable to do anything if something just doesn't look right to me. You gotta be able to change horses in mid stream if something isn't looking quite right cause if it doesn't look right to you... chances are, it won't look right to someone else.

Wow, I am going through the same puzzle. I am doing the storm at sea with the snail's tail block with 4 colors. Right now I am just doing the ST and am going to place those on the design wall to figure out the rectangle color combinations. I thing the center of the SQ in a SQ will alternate the 2 lights. Good luck on yours!!!! Hope you figure it out without too much pain.

Oh, yes, I "always" change the quilt pattern or the color that I thought would be terrific changes. That is why I love quilting. I get to do what I want to do and so far I have not had a quilt that I wanted to throw away when I got finished. I am a retired teacher but started out my career laying out advertisements for a newspaper and I think that has been a great help with designing or adapting quilt kits/patterns to make them just different enough from the original to make them mine. I always give credit to the "Great Quilter" who gave me the idea and take it on making it mine with total color changes, size larger or smaller, and a twist in the pattern somewhere. I just love quilting.

Yes. I always think of constructing a quilt as a process, so sometimes things just need to ba adjusted. Better now than when the top is done and you are unhappy with the result and can't make any changes.

We all have our 'two steps forward, one step back' days. But I believe that we need to stick to it and move forward. For most of us quilting is a learning process no matter how long we have been doing it. The challenge is to move on when we have problems and the triumph is finish a difficult problem.

Yes! When I was in college, I was taught to make 3 designs. Usually the third one is the best but not always. Often, in quilting I jump right in thinking I have a clear vision of what I want to do and what it will look like. Oh how I wish, sometimes, I had made 3 choices before I started.

There's very few quilts I've made that went according to plan. :) What has helped me a LOT is to put it up on the design board and take a couple of pictures. Looking at it on the computer makes things look totally different. Amazing.