Since the last time I posted progress on this project I have done a lot of thinking about how to flesh out the edges.

There are ten areas I need to flesh out as shown above.

I came across three pieces I had put together that I was planning to use in a valance for a room divider that I have not yet written about.  I’ll get to that in some future “Second Act Saturday” post.

I used one of these units as the starting point for designing areas 1, 2, 3 and 4 for my Diamond Quilt.

I placed the unit along the edge of the existing quilt top work, and I could see that this idea held potential.

I started by adding three hexagons to get a diamond shape to insert into the space.

I then added a single green border of hexagons to one end of the diamond.

What followed was a series of designs laid out with the aid of hexagons and maroon units that I had completed previously.

I’m actually quite fond of the last one.

I went on to add a second hunter green border to the green patterned diamond and lay out some other options.  I won’t bore you with them here because the pictures are too dark, and I also don’t intend to use any of those options.

What I decided after all the thinking and planning is that these areas should be solid hunter green so they do not compete with the large diamonds.  I am going to use solid fabric to fill in those areas, but I am going to create a green hexagon border for each area to serve as the edge of the quilt.  The solid hunter green fabric will be sewn under the quilt top.  Or, in other words, the quilt top will be appliquéd to the solid fabric.  I will still need to decide how to bind the quilt but I am leaning toward allowing the shapes of the hexagons to remain in the binding.

The relatively large expanses of solid fabric will give the borders a whole cloth look, and I will be able to do some nice hand quilting in these areas.

I won’t be counting any of the time spent doing this design work toward the time spent to finish the quilt.  I estimate that I put in about four to six hours.  Interestingly, I decided to add the full double border of hunter green hexagons to the piece that I used in these design experiments.  I’ll be adding more to it, and I will use it as a testing ground for the quilting I will do on the larger piece.  I may also try an alternate binding method on the experimental piece.