The Top, She Is Done! (complete with design ramblings)

Bright Sun top finished!! Yeah, baby!! Well, are those of you who rooted for the gradated strips pleased? I love how it turned out. When I saw that particular mock-up, badly drawn as it was, it clicked in my head. The little quilt voice said "that's it". In case anyone is confused, the above pic is the actual quilt top, not a mock-up. It hangs straighter than the pic makes it look like it does. It's just a teeeensy bit too big for my design cloth, so it's fluttering off the edges! As promised, here are my thoughts on why I decided it needed more instead of stopping with the original center and why I chose what I did. The big problem I was having with the original center is that it seemed top-heavy to me. The lime stripes in the background are there to lead the eye around and I think that works. But the way I have the blocks arranged creates a strong diagonal in the upper left corner and in the original layout, I found that diagonal too strong. I felt like it overpowered the rest. I also got an email from MavRita pointing out that very thing, so I wasn't the only one seeing it that way. With adding more blocks to the right and bottom, it feels balanced to me now...like the interconnecting maze of lime strips in the lower right can hold its own against that strong diagonal in the upper left. It's balanced without being symmetrical, which is exactly what I was after. Now of course I could have done that by just adding extra blocks without adding the strips in there. But I like the focus the strips add. To me, they read as a sort of "cross-hair in a scope" effect, adding some structure and focus. However, I was having problems with all the various colors of solid lines I tried. Red and green both seemed overpowering. Blue seemed cold and stark. When I tried shading the colors, though, I love the effect, as if the lines are moving from the plane of the suns back to the plane of the background. I like the fact that the sun motifs on the right and bottom are complete (even though parts of some are "hiding" behind others), while on the top and left, there are incomplete suns running off the edge of the design. To me, that makes it read like the upper left section is breaking out of a box. So....overall, I'm a happy camper. Now on to quilting decisions!