Jennie Beth’s Irish Chain

Do you see those itty bitty squares?  They are 1″ squares!  Jennie Beth did an amazing job lining up all those seams in her bold Irish Chain.

She got this pattern out of a magazine and I just LOVE all that open space to play inside.  This quilt is a challenge because while the pattern is traditional, the colorway isn’t.  I have to keep that in mind when designing the motif to use on her quilt.

Like 99% of my customers, Jennie Beth told me that she trusts me and I should do whatever I think is right.  What I know about her quilts is that she typically makes traditional quilting and her colorways are normally more muted.  I kept that in mind while I auditioned two different treatments to her quilt top.

Approach #1 is very traditional.  It has cross hatching through the chain with spiral feathered swirl wreaths in the open area.  The inner border in an interlocking diamond swag and the outer border is a swirl feather to reflect those wreaths on the large white blocks.  This design would look wonderful on her quilt.

Approach #2 is much more modern.  The colorway reminded me of fire, so I put a fire flower in each of the large open blocks.  I put a modern wavy cross hatch through the chain  and a fire flower chain in the outside border.

After drawing both on my computer I sent them to Jennie Beth for approval.  Which one did she choose?  I’ll reveal her choice in my next post.

For now, though, sometimes it is fun to see how design effects everyone differently so let’s do a tiny experiment here.  Which design would you choose? Put your choice in the comments!