Echo-o-o-o-o

I want to give a shout out to all the pregnant ladies out there who are doing there thing and getting stuff done without any hindrance.  I, on the other hand, have become a useless blob and the bigger I grow the further o-u-t my stomach becomes.  This was not the case with my first two who definitely grew wider and lower...this baby is just growing out.  My shirts don't cover everything anymore, they just hang over and never reach my pants at this point.  Hilarious.

So why all this information?  Well, reaching my sewing machine and maneuvering fabric these days is a challenge.  Luckily I can still sit at the computer and reach the keyboard without any problems so I was able to work out some ideas for a future quilt.  I know.  Just what I need.  Another quilt idea...ha!  Oh well, you have to take inspiration when it strikes right?

The Textile Santa (i.e. my mother-in-law) gifted to me a Fat Quarter set of Lotta Jansdotter's Echo line this Christmas.  I have been meaning to figure out a design to work with this fabric...which is just so amazing that it seems as though no pattern quite does it justice.  Seriously, the uncut fabric is just too gorgeous on its own.  But, today I thought I'd try to tackle a few ideas...here is my progression...

For starters here is the set.  I think this fabric really requires space, meaning a solid, to break it all up.  The quilts I've seen thus far use white and I think white is the best solution as there are too many shades of the other colors to make it work.

I began with the idea of playing around with a log cabin.  Maybe breaking it up by color and doing large box shapes.  But I got stuck pretty quickly.  Although looking at this now I think maybe it could work if I had just played with it a little more.  However, I don't know where the Pink would've fit in...

Then I started over using a 9 block layout.  Maybe breaking it up using an underlying grid would help?  Eh, but I wasn't really happy with any of the results with this either.

Then I remembered this design I had pinned from pinsandbobbins.  I have been saving my Hope Valley stash for just this design...but of course...haven't gotten to it yet! Anyway I thought maybe modifying the pattern a tad and doing large strips of the fabric with white between might work.  But it still wasn't working for me.  I want to describe it as cluttered?

Then I tried the same pattern using sashing in between thinking maybe it needed more white to break it up.  But...eh...still not doing it.  I feel like it looks too jumbled.  If anything more jumbled with the sashing than without in fact!  [I think it works better with a pattern like Hope Valley where all the colors work well together and the pattern on the fabric is small.]

After all this I went back to sleek, simple modern and remembered this quilt from inkandspindle.  So far, this is the design I like the most.  I think it showcases the fabrics best, uses them playfully, and utilizes the white space in an interesting way.  I think I could probably make the strips of patterned fabric larger and I am going to play around with how much white to use between the strips.  What do you think?  Any thoughts?

If anybody has a suggestion for an Echo quilt design please let me know!  I love seeing the different ideas out there and always appreciate your insight.  

- rebecca lynne