Sister's Choice Quilts

My interests are quilting, reading, cooking, family, decorating, and matters of style. I post regular quilting tutorials and book reviews of current fiction.

Wild Irish Rose

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A few months ago, while at the Pacific International Quilt Festival, I saw an unusual quilt at the Honey Run booth.  They had made up a gorgeous quilt that was a different version of the typical Irish Chain.  Instead of using the standard light colored background squares to set off the chain pattern, they used black!  With the Christmas Presence line of fabric they chose, the results were stunning.  I thought I would use the Nell’s Flower Shop fabric I had recently purchased from Kimberly at Fatquartershop.com and use Miss Rosie’s Wild Irish Chain pattern.  Instead of black, I used the dark brown tonal in the Nell’s Flower Shop group.

I started the project with great enthusiasm, but after making 10 of the chain blocks, became dissatisfied with my effort, not completely understanding why.  This weekend, I brought out the project again and laid out the blocks to try to figure out what wasn’t working.  As it turns out, amongst the corals, green, cream prints, and turquoise, I had used various dark brown floral prints.  The addition of the dark brown florals distracted the eye from the pattern the dark brown solid was making in the alternate blocks.  See what I mean?

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So, I could see I would have to do a lot of unsewing.  Quite a LOT of unsewing!  But I am very happy I stuck with it, because the pattern now seems to "pop".  The rows aren’t yet sewn together, but I think you can get the idea.  I love the pieced setting triangles.

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8 responses to “Wild Irish Rose”

  3. I can definitely see where the brown mixed in the chain would be very, very distracting. I’m so glad to see that you stuck with it, as it’s drop dead gorgeous. Just stunning!
    For moi? teehee

  4. I can definitely see where the brown mixed in the chain would be very, very distracting. I’m so glad to see that you stuck with it, as it’s drop dead gorgeous. Just stunning!
    For moi? teehee

  7. I can see what you mean about the dark brown squares. So you took apart 10 blocks and re-did them? Boy – that is determination. I think I probably would have just made new ones – good for you!
    It looks wonderful!

  8. I can see what you mean about the dark brown squares. So you took apart 10 blocks and re-did them? Boy – that is determination. I think I probably would have just made new ones – good for you!
    It looks wonderful!