Options : :

Thank you all for your input on my Lost Ship post from last week, as always, your comments were incredibly helpful. These days, due to a nasty cold I've had since New Years, I'm working much slower than I'd like. I had hoped to have a finished quilt top by now, but instead I'm here again today with more options to share! After taking the photos that I blogged last week, I continued with making blocks until I had twenty four, a much better amount to play with layout choices. I knew right away that regardless which one I chose, I'd need to make quite a few more blocks to create a balanced quilt. To help me determine just how many, I started experimenting, using both straight and on-point settings and discovered several possible variations for each. Still, the two options I mentioned last week were definitely my very favorites. Since many of you mentioned how nice it would be to see more than just the four blocks put together to help you decide, I'm excited to share more of each today. Especially for those of you who mentioned wanting to make these same blocks!

First, I arranged the blocks via the Country Living image.



While I like the look and think it would make for a beautiful quilt, allowing each individual print to shine. As the designer of these fabrics, of course a part of me LOVES that! Overall, I think it would have worked much better had I chosen to create my blocks with a consistent light and dark contrast, rather than simply choosing the color combo of cream + peach + coral to pair up with aqua + blue. As mentioned within the comments, I agree that more neutrals and a calmer color palette would work much better with this layout!



After making my very first block, this next layout is the one I envisioned and is the one that felt the most me.



This center pattern that is created when four blocks are placed together is exactly what I had in mind when I started this quilt!



It was the secondary pattern that emerged that I was most unsure about.



Now this is where I surprised myself and ended up agreeing with the majority of opinions shared last week -- the diamonds or squares that form within this layout are now my very favorite parts of this option! I had mentioned that I would be tempted to add in a little more pattern to break up the big diamonds, most likely by adding in more of the blue and aqua prints to form smaller center diamonds.

Well, I was wrong!



Over the weekend I made twelve more Lost Ship blocks to add one more final row. Before I sew them together to finish up my quilt top I have to work on the symmetry and balance within this quilt layout, but I really love it!

How about you? Now that I've shared more, which option do you prefer?