A Lesson from Pillow #3

I finished my third pillow yesterday and when I was done, took a picture to send to Jenn. She's always so excited to see other people's work, or as she calls it MP by OP (my patterns by other people). 

This one is called "Simple", but ironically, I found it the toughest thus far - with one more to go.

I think it's because of the size, it's only 12 x 20, and the small number of squares within squares. Colour planning was very tough. Unlike a bigger piece, you don't have the real estate to balance it all later. Oh well, by the time I had used the colour pencils to do a few grids, and hooked the last square, I was happy.

As soon as I took the picture, I could see a couple of things that needed fine tuning. Not big things, just individual strips that were blurring the lines between the outer squares and the inner squares. Jenn saw a couple of others. Once again, this reinforces the value of moving back from your work, with either a reducing glass (peep hole) or a picture on your computer screen. 

It astounds me that such a small "just a loop here and there" change would have such a big impact. But see for yourself. As soon as I changed the questionable strips, the inner squares became crisper - no more blurry lines.

I put little red ovals around the areas I changed and you can definitely see the difference it made. I zoomed in a bit so you can see.

Now I'm off to grid pillow #4, which will have smaller motifs and more of them within the pillow-sized area. Hopefully, it won't present the same colour challenges.