Tessellations

Over the last few weeks I've spent much of my time working on various hand-pieced projects in tandem. This one, which is based on Brigitte Giblin's 'Tesselations II' pattern, has now reached a fork in the road where I need to decide what to do with it. So I thought I'd share my conundrum here, in the hope that you might offer your opinions.

When I began work on this pattern, I decided that the small-scale Liberty prints I wanted to use wouldn't work or allow for fussy-cutting the prints (isn't fussy-cutting the most hideous phrase), so I massively reduced the scale of the pattern pieces. I'm really pleased with the way that this has worked, but it does mean that it's a great many inches away from being anything approximating the size of a quilt like the one you can see in Brigitte's book above.

Brigitte's pattern is so beautifully designed that with every new round of pieces added, a different outline is produced and each could serve as a block within a quilt in its own right and I may actually make something doing just that at a later date.

This is the stage which I'm now at and adding the final pieces will give a finished block that looks like the picture below (the pieces in that photo are unsewn and simply pinned in place on a foam board).

If I add the final pieces then I will probably frame it in an old wooden frame and hang it in the dining room. In many ways I quite like this idea. It will remain true to Brigitte's original pattern (albeit in miniature) and will be a daily reminder of my first English paper piecing project that made me truly happy (as opposed to this one which I found less satisfying). The care and hours that have gone into this, the happiness and delight in working within an area of sewing new to me, learning about pattern and colour from studying the work of someone so incredibly talented, all make it feel worthy of a place on the wall.

Planning, trialling different prints, and wrapping the papers for this took two days. As my family sat glued to the first few days of the Olympics, I sat crouched on the floor of the living room with a mess of pins of fabric pieces surrounding me. It was a really happy time and each night when the others had gone to bed, I stayed up until the early hours unable to sleep in my excitement to finish my mock-up of the pattern. The photo above was taken very early in the morning after I'd finally completed it. I rarely (barr modelling the clothes I've made) have my photograph taken with something I've made...but rather like a proud two year old who has spelt her own name correctly for the first time, I wanted my photograph taken with this. I was yet to get dressed, my hair is what my mother and father would affectionately refer to as being similar to a pan scrubber (due to its dense knotted texture!) and my eyes like dark hollows from my lack of sleep, but I like the photograph because it reminds me of my elation at having finished (not, the sewing, just the planning - the pieces were just pinned to the board at that stage).

I've enjoyed working on this so much that I'm tempted not to add on the corner pieces that turn it into a square block, but to continue adding pieces as before, working in rounds, radiating out from the centre until it has grown into a quilt. As I've now reached the end of Brigitte's pattern, due to my making it in miniature, this would mean that from here on in I was improvising with both the pattern pieces, colour scheme and probably many other things that I haven't yet contemplated and although I have ideas as to how I can do this, I also feel slightly worried that I may ruin something that I'm currently really happy with.

What do you think - a framed block or a quilt? The closer I've stitched to this point, the more confused I've become by what to do and I've now reached a paralysis point. I would love some input.
Florence x