White

Of all the modern quilting trends, the concept of needing to use more white in quilts was one I hadn't grasped whole heartedly yet.  Sure, I've used white in quilts, but I think I'm still at that "learning about color and balance" stage in my quilting.  I go back and forth between wanting to do color studies and wanting to just dive in and create with whatever fabric is in my hand.  Let's just say I'm not always so confident in the "planning" stage-- I'm much more of a "Let's wing it and see what happens next" type quilter.  (Incidentially, I'd like to know, which one are you?)

So as my SV quilt progressed, I naturally started thinking I needed a bold or dark border to "tone it down" a bit.  But I don't have a big stash of solids and every dark print I held up just added more to the chaos.  And I began to wonder if I could make the whites in the centers of the A block pop a bit more if I used a "white" border.. This off white mushroom print that I brought back from Japan in '07 (yes, I still have most of that fabric horded..) went perfectly with the blues in the A block, so I decided to go for it.

Once the borders were on, I had a breakthrough-- the white border actually made the entire quilt look brighter.  And I couldn't believe I almost darkened the whole thing with a colored border.  Who would have guessed?  I always opt for a dark border.  I think this may be a breakthrough..
I'm still going to put a pieced outer border on to make it twin size, but I am very happy with it so far.