Design Wall Monday - the Snowmen and the Trees

Yesterday afternoon, I wandered down to my sewing room wondering what I should work on. I had no projects in progress (ok, there are the UFOs, but we're just going to keep ignoring them) and no looming deadlines. I had a book on my cutting table and thumbed through it, found a cute quilt, and started to pull fabric to make it for a friend. About 3/4 of the way into pulling the fabric, I realized that I had already started one quilt for her and that it wasn't even close to being finished, so I put away all the shiny new fabric and pulled out the blocks I'd started a few years ago. 

I started the snowman blocks as one of my goals for the year - I was going to make one a month....you can see I didn't get that far!  Then, I had the bee make me tree blocks to help fill out the top. I hadn't ever put the two on the design wall together until yesterday. 

Once I put them up, I thought a couple things....
1) super busy
2) too many backgrounds
3) yikes, this isn't going to work

I am going to have to go back to the drawing board a bit, but would welcome your thoughts. I do have about 4 or 5 different fabrics to be the backs of the snowman blocks, so I think when I get more made, the repetition of the blues will help a little.  I also plan to make some half square triangles in red and white to serve as connectors between the blocks.  I am thinking I may also need to frame the snowmen in the same color - red or white probably.  

At the end, I am not sure that all the trees are going to work in this quilt - I may wind up making some more of one style or another, but I think I am going to have to simplify them a bit too.  

What do you think?  Any ideas to make this work a little better?  I still have lots of space to work with, as this will be anywhere from a large lap to a king size quilt (final size to be determined).  I also have lots more snowman blocks to make and the ones already on the wall are probably on the smaller size, so the newer ones that I make should be at least as large as the ones there. 

Thanks in advance for any opinions you share! 

Comments

quilterchick said…
I think the blocks are darling! I pictured white sashing between each of them so it would look like the view from a window. Great job!
Ramona said…
I love all of your blocks together! A few of the tree blocks may be a bit busy, but most of them look great. I think the red sashing would be fun, and white would be nice, too. Have fun with it!
Julie said…
I love your blocks, both the snowmen and trees and I would leave the trees, except maybe the onpoint one (stick it on the back). When I have done these type of quilts I usually pick a unifying color (red would be awesome) and frame all the blocks in it. In some places the it's wider than others but that is okay, it gives the eye more of a place to rest. I honestly thing the half squares might be a bit too much for this quilt if you use all the blocks. If it was just the snowmen then it would be awesome. Just a suggestion of course, looking forward to seeing what you do!
Bonnie said…
What fun! I love the idea of adding red to the mix. I would make a couple of more snow men and then play again. It always looks like a daunting task to set multi sized blocks together but you can do it. Start by pairing trees to snowmen. Figure out what you need to bring them to the same size. Get sections organized that way and then connect them with extra pieces. I can see red pinwheels as filler, or half triangle squares, my some flying geese or hour glass blocks. The background differences don't bother me at all. I'm looking forward to what you do with this. It's going to be fabulous! But king size? Yikes!