FrankenWhiggish Rose Quilt Design Continues to Evolve

FrankenWhiggish Rose, Current Fave Design

Ah, EQ7, my virtual design wall -- how do I love thee?!  You may remember that I posted a photo of my first completed FrankenWhiggish Rose needle turned applique block back in mid October.  I did not have an entire quilt in mind when I started on that block -- I combined several different applique patterns to come up with a block that would be suitable for learning needle turn applique, incorporating different sizes and shapes of inside and outside points, curves, bias stems, reverse applique, and stuffed berries.  I knew I would be spending a lot of time hand stitching the block, so I put in the time up front to ensure that the design would appeal to me aesthetically.  The applique itself was a technical challenge for me, but I threw in a design challenge as well -- I wanted to create something with a country French vibe that would tie in with the mood and color scheme of my kitchen and family room drapery fabric:

Monado by Vervain, Havana colorway

This is the finished applique block:

Completed 16" FrankenWhiggish Rose Applique Block

I was really pleased with how the first block came out, and decided to make "some more of them" for a lap quilt that would live in the family room for sofa snuggling.  I cut out lots of yellow petals and I have been appliqueing them to coral red petals, assembly line style, for the past few weeks, still having no idea how I was going to use these blocks.

So today I fired up the EQ7 software and started playing around with different layouts.  I primarily wanted to figure out how many FrankenWhiggish Rose blocks I would need to prevent myself from wasting time making too many petals!

In these designs, I am using an imported photo of my one finished applique block and combining that with the sashing, border and block designs in the EQ7 software in order to preview some of the different quilts I could create using this block.  This is the second runner up:

Second Runner Up Design

...And this is my current favorite:

Favorite!  (Click to make the photo larger)

This quilt would finish at 74 1/4" x 74 1/4", which is on the generous side for a couch throw quilt but still okay, I think.  Those measurements would be BEFORE quilting and laundering, so the real quilt would finish a bit smaller.  The border blocks would be 7 1/4" square, so I should be able to do those pieced blocks without too much trouble.  Why do I like this design better than the first one?  I can't say for sure.  I really like the repeated Xs and plusses in the applique block, sashing posts and pieced border blocks.  I spent an hour or two playing around with different layouts and alternate blocks before I came up with this design, and I will probably play around with it some more before I commit to it 100%, but this will be the basic idea.

So that means I need a total of nine appliqued blocks (one down, eight more to go) and twenty of those pieced border blocks for this quilt.  I'm even more excited to make them now that I have a plan!

I'm linking up with Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times as well as Anything Goes Monday at Stitch By Stitch.  Have a great week, everyone!