What I Did With Your Advice

Love Birds, originally uploaded by Shadrach Meshach & Abednego.

Thanks, everyone, for your advice. It was really, really helpful. From reading over everyone's comments,it seemed that the general feeling was that it needed a bit more than the plain row of squares that I showed you last time, but that the spiky border I had envisioned would be too much. And yet, a plain border would perhaps be too stark. So I used the remaining purple that I had to make a border, inset with some of the linen and cotton from the squares. I had to augment with this purple blender fabric. That blender fabric looks bluer here than it does in real life, where it does its job and blends a bit more successfully than one would imagine from the photo. I also saved the words to go on the back, as most of you suggested.

I do worry that the quilt top looks a bit like a hobo parade, and I have to confess that I think it just misses the mark. The fact that I am working to a desperate deadline and that I was restricted to the fabrics I had on hand (LQS is closed on Sunday and the civic holiday today) are more explanations than excuses.
 
Oh well.  I keep reminding myself of the magic that happens once a project gets quilted, bound, washed, and dried, and comes out all crinkly and any harshness or starkness is somehow soothed away.  Please keep your fingers crossed for me! What I do like about this is the wonderful linen panel in the centre. I have another one that I kept for myself - the same print but green instead of purple.

After this one is all quilted, I'll think carefully about lessons learned and then try again. I do love how these fabrics show up against the sunlight.

And here's another question for you. I think I would like to start a hand piecing project, but NOT hexagons. I am utterly saturated with seeing hexagons all over the blogopolis, and I just don't feel the love. But I do see the appeal of having a project that is portable and I would like to build my hand piecing skills. (Not hand quilting - I like the durability that machine quilting gives.) Can you give me some suggestions for a hand piecing project? Cathedral Windows, for example?