It is official. I am not in love with my 'En Provence Mystery Quilt'. (no disrespect to Bonnie whose quilt I do love) I loved gathering the fabric, I even loved waiting for the clues each Friday. I also didn't mind the cutting and sewing together of the small units. However, now that I have begun sewing the units together to make the larger blocks I am absolutely turned off! I have spent quite a time trying to get randomness into my blocks - but my lack of fabric variety means that the overall effect is not coherent. It looks a mess. My seam matching is poor in places (reason is one set of purple units were slightly too big) and I cannot be bothered to undo and make it better. I do not love the result so far! (Update - I have started to re-do the sashing strips and I am trimming all the remaining purple/lilac units not yet used) I cannot understand how the purple units ended up 1/16" larger than the neutral ones that didn't need trimming at all when I used exactly the same method of cutting and construction!
I have sewn the sashing strips, but not yet sewn them to the large blocks. I still have 5 blocks to do and the rest of the sashing strips. I will have to play around with the layout when all the blocks and pieces are done. The main quilt just about fits on my design wall. Once sewn together I should then have room to lay out the borders. One problem though - I know I will not fit this onto my quilting frame. I may see if it will fit without the borders.....then I could quilt the main bit, and add the borders once taken off the frame. I would then have to sew and quilt the borders on my ordinary machine. In hindsight I should have cut and made less blocks and made a smaller quilt. As I have fallen out of love with this I cannot see me keeping it. I have no idea how I would go about selling it once complete.....I think I would have to try and recoup some money as I am disgusted at myself for spending so much. Part of me is hoping that once it is finished I will think better of it. I am making myself carry on and finish this when the temptation is to put it away, forget about it, and carry on with my 9-patch Irish Chain Quilt instead as that is much more enjoyable! Here is the Monday link up for others who are doing this mystery quilt too.
