Rolling, Rolling, Rolling...

I have a favorite quote:

"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are different."

You know how somebody tells you how to do something and they say, "Just do... x." We all know that "just" doing "x" is a lot more complicated than that.

This was the first layout of the pink slashed squares blocks. Nothing is sewn together here, it's just up on the design wall.  The color isn't that great either, because the room is a bit dark in that corner, and I have to get some spots installed. Anyway, this was decidedly underwhelming, and there seems to be more busy-ness on the left side of the quilt than the right. It isn't balanced.

Fifteen minutes later I had this, and this was worse.

After 45 more minutes, I had this, and this was getting somewhere, but it wasn't quite there yet.

After another 20 minutes, I had this... and it was getting closer. But it was also getting later. Time for bed.

So just what am I trying to do? I am trying to distribute the "busy" patterns around the whole quilt, and not leave too much of the same print in the same area. I'm trying to spread everything around so it's balanced and has a nice flow.

The next morning, I got up, looked at it, made a couple of changes and I had this. I thought this was IT.

It was not.

That night I came home from work, made dinner, and then tinkered with it a bit more. After another hour or so, I had this, and thought for sure this was IT.

But I saw something that needed changing. This is about as perfect as I am going to get it with the blocks I have. So THIS really is IT and is what I am going to sew together.