Shape
Elly Sienkiewicz had challenged me to enter a Baltimore Album contest. I took the challenge and started to design. I wanted a quilt I could hang on the wall in my office, above my credenza, or at home above our bed. The 60" wide by 45" long size suited this desire perfectly. I also wanted my quilt to be "different." I like blocks on point and found it was more interesting to shorten the diamond height. . . so the 18" wide by 13" high wound up being the perfect size block to fill the space.

The shape also gave me some different opportunities with the border. I could place a simple border right over the top of the corners of the blocks or I could place the set of blocks on top of the border. Both techniques are used in the three quilts.

The block placement is also another design opportunity. I use a "strong" center block to bring people up close to the quilt. In the first two quilts, I used circle patterns in the 4 corners on point- this allowed the patterns to group better and not interfere with the border. The remaining 4 blocks tended to be more square in shape - echoing the shape of the quilt.
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So, you ask, "how did you do in the contest?" The quilt was not accepted due to the size. After I got over the shock and disappointment, I realized I loved the quilt and the journey it had started. So the personal achievement was the success - not the contest after all.
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