Epic fail

So, my little task this week was to put together the back for the Quilt for a Big Girl Bed. I like to make pieced backs, and even though I had enough fabric to make a really simple back with just TWO pieces of fabric, I had to go and cut it all up to sew back together again. I was planning to include some of the bright fabrics from the front and add some gray prints to the white/gray prints. In my mind it was beautiful. Then I discovered that the bright fabrics would make some shadows through the batting, and the (lightweight) white print fabrics on the front would look kind of muddy, so I decided to eliminate them and go for a low volume back with some "pops" (HUH??) of gray. I just went at it, piecing some pretty big blocks together. I finished it last night, and it was UG. LY. The low volume was so low it was pretty much silent, and the gray blocks screamed MEH (if that makes any sense). 

I can't believe I'm posting pictures of it. But live and learn. Oh, and the pictures are beauts, too, because the thing was too big to lay out on my living room floor and I had to take pictures with a flash in my dark basement. And to add to the misery, I hadn't pressed all the seams, either.

So, what to do? This quilt really needs to get done because I need to make another quilt really soon for Little Brother who will be making an appearance shortly after the holidays. I've decided to make yardage with all the leftover white prints, cut new blocks, unsew all those gray blocks and replace them with the whites. Then the back will just be low, low volume, which is probably appropriate for a quilt that should make a little girl want to go nigh-night. I'm hoping the quilting will pull it all together, or at least disguise a pretty poor attempt at free spirited piecing. 

I'm linking up today with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday, because it's probably not a bad idea to sometimes share a work that's not exactly in progress. 

Time to find the seam ripper.