:( I'm learning that just because the colors/shades/tones/hues flow beautifully in a picture does not mean that it does in proper lighting. I saw a picture of a scrappy sampler quilt and since I've only been quilting for 16 months now, I thought it would be nice to work my way through a sampler quilt to hone my skills...and use up some scrappy stash. I decided to use the same colors/tones/hues and shades as the picture since they worked so well for this artist but they're not so much for me. So, I looked again at the quilts I've made and realized, the colors flow soo much better in photos of my quilts that I've posted than the actual quilts (though the quilts still turned out really nice). This was especially true in the three bargellos that I've made. You can just see the movement better in a picture than just looking at the bed. The pic I saw had some stark whites mixed with creams to offset reds but now that the blocks are going together, the whites just seem to stand out too much but not in the pics. :oops: Not sure if I'll fix those three blocks yet before continuing the quilt or just blindly trust that it will all come together in the end. :-(

I haven't yet tried a bargello quilt. Thanks for the insight. I'll keep it in mind when I get ready to do one.

Some of these blocks have a light cream fabric as a background fabric but they photograph white and some of the whites are just blinding. Am I losing my mind? It looked great like this in the other woman's quilt pics. DH thinks I'm being too hard on myself but it just feels a bit off. I just don't know. Suggestions?

I think you are being a bit hard on yourself. You may have a problem that I have noticed in myself....mainly that after I have been working on a quilt for awhile, I don't like it. I think nothing works. If I let it sit a bit or just go ahead and finish it, I end up liking it.

So, I agree with your husband. You are too hard on yourself. I like all of these blocks. Give yourself a break and take a break. Then come back and look again.

If the stark white bothers you, as it would me, it would be easy to do a simple tea dye to the squares with the white in them. The tea dye, if you don't make it too strong, won't affect the other colors much, but will tone down the white so it blends with the other blocks much more nicely. I'd test it on a few scraps first.
good luck!

I agree, don't be too hard on yourself...Tea die works wonders..

I never thought of tea dying! Thanks so much! I've seen Eleanor Burns do it and loved how it came out for her but never thought of it for this. It would be so easy to separate those specific blocks and soak them...if it doesn't work, I'm only out a few blocks but if it does, then I won't have to resew new blocks. Thanks for the thoughts!

I like what you have done so far samplers are fun sometimes just moving blocks around make you feel differently and borders sashing corner stones all way to pull everything together .Take a break from it and then decide if you need to make changes And the tea trick is a great idea I'll have to remember that one. Good luck it is going to be beautifui what ever you decide.

I think you should keep going, finish the quilt and believe that it will meld once it is all put together and quilted. I find that while my blocks may look discordant and choppy and not at all what I had in mind, the quilting, particularly if you do a fairly dense free motion, will make all the difference. And if it doesn't, I just wash the finished thing a whole lot, and it eventually fades and runs together to be quite nice. J/K (sort of) with that last bit.

RST