The Spring Quilt

I started cutting the last week of March.  Before that, I started pinning inspiration quilts.  I had purchased a large selection of fat quarters from the Lotta Jansdotter Echo fabric line.  I really loved them all.

I found some great ideas over at Pinterest, like this one:

Source: flickr.com via Annee on Pinterest

And this one...

Source: Uploaded by user via Annee on Pinterest

But ultimately I followed a tutorial called the Lemon Square Quilt pattern from the Fresh Lemons blog.

You make six different square blocks, and then seven of each block.  Inspired by the combination in that trellis quilt, I thought it would be fine to mix all my Echo fabrics into one great quilt:

I added in a few Kona solids.  But somehow when I laid it all out together I just didn't love it.  I felt like I had not made quilt magic.  I have some individual blocks which I think are great:

Then there are others, that did not turn out at all as I had hoped:

For the time being, I have stacked all my blocks back up and put them up on the shelf.  I will finish the quilt.  Maybe even before the end of April.  But it will not go down as one of my favorite quilts ever.  Even though I had hoped that it would.  I might add some white sashing between my rows of seven blocks, just to break up the patterns a bit.  I will lay it all out again, trying again to find the most harmonious way for those blocks to get sewn together.  And maybe after giving myself a break from looking at all the blocks, when I come back to it, I'll see it all entirely differently.

It's still gorgeous fabric, and for that reason alone, I will see this project through to the end.  And I will continue to dream about the next quilt, the next fabric line, and the next design that I'll get to try to make quilt magic with.  You win some, and you lose some.  You learn something either way.