Have I Created a Monster?

Lesson 3 of the Beginners Patchwork class at the Neighbourhood House is tomorrow evening. For two lessons I've been reasuring the students about their colour choices. I've suggested they only make one set of fabric choices at a time and let the quilt "speak to them" about what to do next. This is definitely my philosophy, for quilts in particular. I find that somehow the process of combining fabrics results in a phenomenon with a character of its own.

But, now I have to choose the sashing fabric for this butterfly quilt.

I didn't really plan to make this quilt. It started off because I wanted to demonstate the different steps in the process for the students as we went along, as well as having a demonstration of the finished product. I didn't think very hard when I chose the plain blue fabric to go with the cute butterflies, but at that stage I wasn't really thinking of it as a quilt. The students have surprised me by becoming quite attached to the butterfly fabric and they seem to expect to see it transformed into a quilt by the end of the course.


So, now I have to choose the sashing fabric for this butterfly quilt. I have pulled out dozens of fabrics and waited for the 9-patch block to speak to me. For a long time, all it seemed to be saying was, "NO": too bright, too dull, too red, not the right shade of blue, too busy, too plain . . .

I think I've maybe got as far as a "maybe", now:
I'm thinking of cutting this yellow-orange-red fabric to maximise the yellow and using the purple as a contrast for the corner-stones--those are the little squares that hold the whole thing together.

For now I'm using another favourite technique, wait and see. This involves leaving the uncertain choice in a place where I am likely to come across it throughout the day while I'm busy with something else. Sometimes seeing it like that, perhaps in passing or out of the corner of my eye, gives me a better answer than a process of insistent enquiry. Besides, the process of insistent enquiry is driving me mad! There, now I've given myself a technical excuse for what might otherwise be seen as procrastination.