can a quilt be too thin and too purple?

Now I must admit I tried very hard not to express my fears as I kept discussing the order with my customers. Sure I agreed with them that the color and design of red sky were wonderful.

It would be easy to make a quilt half as wide. Keep the sunrise--or is it a sunset. That would be fun. But--that was not what the customers wanted. No, they wanted the quilt one panel wide and long--64 inches long. And they didn't want the light colors up at the top. Just colors as dark as possible. With a hint of the sun. One panel of the ocean at the very bottom of the quilt. And they wanted it before the holidays. Sigh!!

Of course I smiled sweetly. After all, they had ordered from me before--twice. And I could certainly understand why they wanted it before the holidays--their daughter was coming home. She lives across the country and of course they wanted to show off the new quilt to her.

But quite frankly this has been a very exhausting year--as I am sure you can understand. Even if my studio had not floated down the river, it would be hard to have enough different colors of purple and blue to create an interesting piece.  Now--with a reduced fabric selection, the challenge would be even greater. Would the quilt be too dull? Too thin? Too dark? Where would the story come from?

As you can tell,  I was more than a bit wary of this project. Sigh!! Where would I find the energy to work on this piece that might not even succeed--no matter how hard I tried. Well, there was nothing to do but take a deep breath and start to cut the fabric.  I made the first blocks. Added some dark grey to create interest. And kept piecing. Hmm.

The first effort looked great--but not as warm as red sky. OK--add some navy and blue. I have just time to remake the quilt. See if that is closer to the initial design. Put up a test piece of the yellow sun.

Yes, this is working. Will it look better when I sew it together? More polished and complete?

 Yes, this is a quilt.  Not bad.  I see lots of possibilities. Maybe I should make several. Hang them in an arrangement. Oh, don't you love it when a custom order points to new directions? New ideas?

What other colors can I use? What other designs? Should they be the same length--or different? Change the colors? Sold in groups or individually?  How to display them? Can I get a few ready for the Baltimore Show in February? Or is this an idea that I should not pursue? What do you think?