A quilt I’ve been piecing is turning into the love child of Frank Lloyd Wright and Kansas (the state, not to be confused with the rock group.) It began as a small piece based on Ricky Tims’ convergence quilt instructions. I never finished it as I didn’t think the delineations were clear enough, and it’s been stuck in a drawer ever since.
Cue mad urge to clean out my quilt stuff. I rediscovered the failure and cut it up. I decided the pieces reminded me of Kansas seen from the air, so I combined them with hand dyed yellow and gold cotton in honor of Kansas sun flowers and a bit of turquoise.
playa lakes, Scott County, Kansas
The reds in my fabric reminded me of the Kansas tallgrass prairie. Yes, parts of Kansas are beautiful. I know this because I’ve lived there.
The result seemed incomplete until I decided to surround those golden fields with various shades of green. The greens improved the top but it still needed something. Enter Frank Lloyd Wright and his stained glass windows.
Maybe some narrow strips would do the trick.
I believe I’m close to where I want this piece to be. And I bet you thought I didn’t do any research for my quilts.
The Snarky Quilter 
Really nice make over-love the “new” piece. And yes, it is Kansas like!
Sometimes I need the “what the heck” of knowing a piece isn’t working to free up my approach to it. I have one I’m working on now that is a lovely background piece, but it needs a foreground. It’s going to be hard and I may well fall on my Janome.
I have a convergence quilt that I haven’t finished because I am vaguely dissatisfied with it. I might have another look at it, but whether I have the courage, or the imagination to alter it remains to be seen!
You might do an image search on convergence quilts and see if someone else’s solution might also be yours. Besides, what’s the worst that can happen? My feeling about convergence quilts is that few seem to have had the same results as Ricky did. I think it’s the fabric.
I agree about the fabric. I had my doubts from the outset, as I bought my material from the limited selections locally – nothing hand dyed! The members of our Club each made one, with varying results. If it taught me one thing, it was never follow a pattern to the letter! But I am still a beginner…
If there’s a part or parts of your convergence piece that you like you could cut those out and use them as blocks in another quilt, or combine them with fabric strips. And I too believe that patterns are works in progress, not written in stone. If you know a better way to do something, then ignore what the pattern says and use what works for you.
I love it! I liked it in the first stage you showed, but it is even better now. I love the narrow strips.
Well thank you. I’m a wee bit addicted to narrow fabric strips and have been know to see how narrow I can get them. So far a quarter inch wide seems my personal best.
You are getting stuff done! I hope you bring them to the next meeting. Since you have a no-reply here is my thought on my rejection – I am just tired of these places begging for people to enter and then you find out after the fact that they are only accepting a very small number. They should at least post the losers pieces somewhere.
I’ll bring some of the finished items, even though they’re not all modern quilts. I notice that some magazine challenges say they’ll show all entries, either in the magazine or on the website. Quilting Arts has a breast pocket challenge where they promise that approach. You need to send them the actual pocket you make. I don’t know if there’s some legal permission issue involved if all entries are shown or what. I know I’d love to see all entries, but it may be that the photos vary so much in quality, size, etc., that it’s not feasible.
It’s clear you spend a lot of research time.
I need to survey my UFOs and decide what, if anything, can be done with them. I know I’ll abandon one. That may be a good project for today…
Depending on their state of completion UFOs can be good candidates for quilt backs. They’re also fun to cut up and use as the starter for another project.
Yes. I’m a finisher so I never have many. The one to be abandoned is a bunch of crayon panels done at Outer Banks, NC a few years ago. A lot has happened in the family since then, so … it’s not something I’ll finish. Not sure what to do with the panels, though.