I haven't heard back from my customer, so I really hope she likes it.
I treated the negative space as though each Dresden ray extended to the edge of the lighter gray.
That allowed me to play with different quilting motifs. And I got to have fun in smaller spaces, so if I chose a motif that is rather slow going, I wasn't disappointed that I had a huge space to cover.
I also played with the rays themselves. After dividing the background into quadrants, I placed the ties so that either 7 or 8 ties would fill each quadrant. Although I didn't worry so much about placing the ties "just so," Richard came in and insisted that I rearrange them. In the end, the four yellow ties border each quadrant and create an X.
I was a little surprised at how much the border wanted to twist, but I assume the problem is that I cut the 2 1/2 strips at the wrong angle in my attempt to get enough border.
The most difficult part of making this quilt was stitching in the center where the ties overlap. Some of the ties are very thick, so my machine wanted some encouragement to push through, but we made it. If I were to make another, I would definitely deconstruct the ties and remove the interfacing to reduce the bulk. It turns out that deconstructing ties is much easier than I originally thought.
Happy Quilting,
