Originally Posted by
Lafpeaches
I ended up hating my finished mystery quilt top.I love the colors but think it's messy looking. My husband compliments me on every thing I make until this one. He said it would look good from a distance if hanging on a wall so the pattern could be seen better. I'm quilting it now then am giving to a neice downstate but I feel guilty about it cause she is so sweet and won't say anything bad about it. I wouldn't take the time to even quilt it but had told my sister I was giving it to her daughter. I recently talked with LQS owner who said that she made the units but didn't like the final block so is not going to finish it but may change her mind later. I think I may have liked it if I used black sashings instead of the pieced ones. I saw one done like this and liked it but was too late to do mine that way.
I completely understand and sympathize. It was my first mystery quilt and probably my last. I have so many things I want to do that I hate to spend as much time and money on something when I don't know where I'm going with it. For those who are short on "things to do", then it is great. But since I have lists of quilts I want to make, I'm thinking for me..."mystery quilts" will have to wait until I see the finished results.
I came to the "reveal" thinking that "wow...can't wait". When I saw it, I said to myself, "You're kidding, right?" Then I saw she wasn't kidding. I can't describe what my feelings were, but well, let's say, I went to the computer and worked on another version.
My feelings of ambivalence weren't because it was "too busy", but because I couldn't see a pattern. (It is the same reason I am not crazy about the D9P. I know tons of people like it, but for me, it looks about the same--and when I can't see pattern and I think I'm supposed it, it leaves me feeling frustrated.)
With the right colors, it is possible to see the pattern, but... This one would be one I would pass on in a book.
So, I made two. One large one - my improvisation of the original - and the original pattern made into a couch sized quilt. For both, I changed the middle blocks into a solid and for the couch sized (original pattern) one I replaced the bright green for a softer, minty green so it would fade into the background and I could see the whirligig movement better.
More or less the original: [ATTACH=CONFIG]512637[/ATTACH]
And then my variation/improvisation:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]512638[/ATTACH]
I happen to love these colors so I wasn't about to let these beautiful fabrics sit around in a UFO! I like them both now. Love? Maybe not. But I like handling them. I spent so much time on my improvisation and really enjoyed adding to it, that I really was impressed by the end result. (It surprised me, in fact.)