Section 4 Left Side

Section 4 Right Side

Since finishing the center panel of my current quilt project, I have become consumed with designing the borders.  I have thought of little else over the past two weeks and have lost a lot of sleep (see last week’s post)!  Part of the issue has been the challenge of making sure that the border designs work well with the center panel, in addition to looking nice on their own.  Not to mention that I have nothing to sew until I figure it all out!

One piece of the puzzle has been choosing a background fabric for the border.  Four stores and one failed attempt later, I think I’ve finally found it.  Of course I had to bring the completed center panel with me shopping, and I enjoyed watching the reactions of those in each store who saw it.  Making quilts certainly gives me pleasure, but to see my work give pleasure to someone else is incredible.

Section 5 Left Side

Section 5 Right Side

You, however, will have to settle for just seeing sections 4 and 5 at the moment.  The first three sections have been pictured in previous posts and you can see them by looking at the Current Quilt Project category.  Unlike the first three, sections 4 and 5 are not symmetrical but they each have a left and right side to bring the design back into balance.

Section 4 frames each side of section 2.  In fact, the left and right units touch the top and bottom of section 2 making it look like one group.  There are 18 patches in each section, with two lefts and two rights bringing the total to 72.

Section 5 starts out alongside section 3 but then branches out.  It eventually connects to section 6, so it doesn’t look completed on its own.  This section contains 28 individual patches, again multiplied by two lefts and two rights for a total of 112.  Altogether, these first five sections contain 385 patches.

Sections 4 and 5 do something else interesting:  they frame section 1.  The green leaves meet just beyond the corners of the mitered square and this happy circumstance – planned, of course – is one of my favorite parts of the design.  I just didn’t know nice it was going to look until I saw it in fabric!

Sections 4 & 5 Framing Section 1