New Challenge

I've been sewing hexagrams for this quilt for a couple of weeks. It's from Maxine Rosenthal's One Block Quilts. The hexagrams are all different, all kaleidoscopes, and, in Maxine's book she arranges her hexagrams in interesting patterns like abstract paintings, the edges blur the quilt becomes a visually fascinating whole. Above is my first take at arranging the hexagrams I had made to that point, which was on Saturday.

I flipped through Maxine's book for a sense of color placement and then just starting putting the hexagrams on my design wall, overlapping the edges. I felt fairly pleased. Called R. to come and give me her artistic guidance. She did not like the placement of three particular hexagrams. They were marked with pins.
This is my work table during the process. One can see a hunk of the original fabric from which the hexagrams were cut. I searched quite a while for it, trying to meet Maxine's criteria. As I sewed I was afraid I'd made a terrible mistake. I couldn't imagine them going together interestingly or at all coherently. But I think they did. And, though they may need some juggling and maybe I'll need to sew a few other hexagrams, below is today's final arrangement which will get a few pieces added to the zig-zag sides to make it even. I'm not totally sure the arrangement below will be the final one. I'll get R's opinion probably tomorrow and I will leave it hanging on the design wall for a few more days before I actually start sewing it together. At this point, I'm eager to get a fabric of very different design and colors and see what very different quilt I can make. I love the surprises of this kind of work. I'm sorry this one is so dark. I think I'll name it "Fireworks over the Tree Tops."