Ready Set Snow - The Sashing Strikes Back

Remember my Ready Set Snow quilt from last post? Here it is in its native state:

And here is a re-enactment of that quilt with the original sashing I chose, just to illustrate how light sashing... really didn't do anything positive to the quilt.

It was worst where the lightest blocks were.

So I pretty quickly figured out that I wanted a darker color for sashing. But this led to a dilemma: the colors of the Me & My Sister line were pretty unique - a feature that had initially drawn me to the line - but that worked against me when it came to finding complementary winter-themed fabric. I didn't want to go outside the line, and end up something that sacrificed either whimsy or tone, but I had the dilemma that picking one of the darker colors IN the line would lead to having my blocks blend into the sashing.

Fortunately, my mom came up with a way around that - she proposed a pieced sashing, that alternated color choices. In desperation, I tried what she suggested and liked it!

With one exception: I had no idea what to do with the cornerstones. I couldn't just continue the pattern without putting all 3 colors around a corner block (thus increasing the chances of a block/sashing same-color mashup), but that left me needing an original design for the corners (I thought). My runner-up solution was to make little Four-Triangle squares for the corners, but in practice that did not turn out as attractive as I'd hoped. For one, it introduced triangles where there hadn't been any before, and in a quilt that was mostly about swirls and dots, and not at all geometrically inclined.  For another, my math was off, and my points didn't line up the way I'd hoped they would. Which meant either 1) live with it or 2) do it over anyway.

Then I realized I also had option #3 - call my mother. Boy, quilting was sure turning me into a dutiful child! She suggested a different fabric for the cornerstone fabrics, and it worked! I am still sort of borrowing the color of the blocks for my corners, but since it's not the same print any more, it doesn't matter nearly as much. Here's my final product:

With the tree feature fabric in the corners. I really like that fabric, and I'm glad I got to highlight it again. Also, the original sashing didn't *entirely* go to waste, I was able to use some on the backing:

Ready, Set, Snow got basted last week, and it is my goal to get it finished (ie, quilted and bound) by Christmas. It's been represented as Christmas I in my WIP lists (as opposed to Christmas II which is the Christmas Traditions Quilt) and here it is based and ready for quilting:

The force is with you, young quilt top, but you are not a jedi yet.