Evolution {of a quilt}

Are you a planner?

I guess I'm a "fly by the seat of my pants" kind of gal. 

I have seen this trait manifest itself in my quilting, especially.  With my pattern designing, I usually get some inspiration, think on it for a bit, draw it out and then go for it.  But with my personal projects, I often just dive right in.  Either way, I usually have to adjust things along the way.  Sometimes you just have to see it, you know?  Let me show you what I mean...

Some of you may remember when I started this quilt:

Well, these dresden plates have been sitting in a box for about a year while I've been figuring out what kind of layout to do with them.  Originally, I wanted to put the blocks on-point with some Irish chain blocks in-between.  Kind of like this.  But, I couldn't seem to find the right fabric for the other blocks and so the project just sat and sat.  It would have been striking, for sure, but since I've made a resolve to finish up old projects, I recently decided to change gears so I could get this baby done. 

First (here I go, flying by the seat of my pants),

I decided that there needed to be something to break up this area where the blocks meet in the corners (partly to fill the void and partly so the dots would avoid hitting each other in a weird way).

So I decided that making them into a "snowball" might be a fun

(and quick) solution.

But then I thought those black squares were looking too big and kind of overpowering.  [See the lack of planning here?  I just kind of picked a size and went with it.]  So I decided that I should break-up all of the black by putting another square (of a different color) inside them.

But, then, I felt like all of those different colored squares between the dresdens were taking away some of the focus of the dresdens. 

At this point, I was starting to get a little worried.  I felt like I may have possibly ruined my quilt.  Maybe I shouldn't have made my blocks into snowballs in the first place!?!   But, it was too late now, so I decided to push ahead and "just go with it".

So I unpicked those corners that I had already sewed and went back to the all black.  But, I realized that my dots were still "touching" (which I wasn't a fan of) so I decided I needed some sashing between the blocks, as well.  This was going to  dramatically change the look of this quilt, but it had to be done.  I couldn't see any other choice.

So that is the look I went with. 

It's much crisper, if you ask me [which, I think works well with the modern feel of my fabrics].  It keeps the focus on my dresdens, but still adds some interest to the overall design of the quilt.

So, maybe I've learned my lesson ~ to think things through a bit more before just diving in head first.  I was a little scared there for a while and I don't know that I want to take that chance again.  But, on the other hand, maybe being spontaneous can lead to good, unexpected things...

What do you think?