Clockwork Orange - A Finished Top

Remember this Millennium Rail Fence that I wrote about last week? I started with this, smacked it on my design wall and started playing with the suggestions from the wonderful folks who gave me their feedback last week. Thanks again for sharing your ideas with me! I love how people come up with really different ideas. It's fun to see all the different directions a quilt can go it -- and they can all work beautifully.

First, I tried some red on the border and as some applique. Nope, nothing I had worked well. Then I tried purple - nope. Needed something warmer. Pulled out the five orange fabrics that I have in my stash and auditioned them. Bingo! A dark red-orange seemed to work best -- it added some colour, but didn't clash.

Detail photo of Clockwork Orange

One suggestion was to just sandwich it, quilt and bind it. That was so tempting! Before going that route though, I thought I'd see if I could do something to visually tame the pattern craziness so I played around with some solid black. I'd had the idea of offsetting the rail fence in black so I tried that. Up on the design wall with the orange accent, I was liking it. A lot.

Detail photo of Clockwork Orange

But there was too much black. So I added an orange cross. That did it for me. With the orange cross and the black border, it will be a twin-sized quilt.

I don't find it a pretty quilt, but I love it anyways. Perhaps I love it because of just how disappointed I was with it originally. Or maybe I'm just in the honeymoon stage and in a year, I will say, "what was I thinking?!" Time will tell.

As I was pressing the orange stripe in the cross, I thought of the perfect name. Let's face it, Millennium Rail Fence had to go. A) Millennium was so last, well, millennium (sorry, just couldn't resist), and B) it was not a successful rail fence so I'd rather not emphasize what's not working. Clocks + orange = Clockwork Orange. Yay! So here is my Clockwork Orange finished top. Woo hoo! One WIP saved.

Clockwork Orange Top

Millennium Rail Fence - A Work in Progress

It was lost, but now it is found. I'm kind of wishing it was still lost though. ;) This poor Work in Progress (WIP)/Unfinished Object/Train Wreck was started back, well, before the Millennium. Sadly, this is not my oldest WIP.

I'd apologize for the picture quality, but a better photo really wouldn't make this look any better.

This is a perfect case of fabrics from the same line don't always cut up and combine so well. Besides the solid black, there are four fabrics from a Karen Jarrar for Marcus Brothers Textiles line. There's a large scale beige and black print and a small scale beige and black print. There is a fabric that has black clocks on a beige background and another that has beige clocks on a black background.

Close up of the fabrics

I thought difference in prints and scales would show better when they were cut up than they did. Even though there's a lot of contrast between the beige and black in each fabric, when they are cut up like this and placed together, they just really blend and the rail fence effect doesn't really work. The solid black rail fence really pops though.

So the question is how to fix it or make the best of it? Someone once suggested that I add a pop of colour, maybe some red applique. What would I applique though? Clocks? Use oil sticks to add colour? Hide this by using it as a backing? Let it get run over by my kids' schoolbus?

Well, even though we're almost 12 years past the Millennium (or 11 depending on who you talk to), I'd like to rescue this poor quilt and give it a purpose. Right now, I'm leaning towards using this piece as a large 'block' with a thin border of red (purple?), offset in a solid black background. I think that this would help focus on the black rail fence. I'm also thinking of using quilting lines that mimic the rail fence in black or red thread.

If anyone has any thoughts in this approach or ideas on alternatives, I'm all ears.

Happy Monday!