The doors are on my wonky Dresden Neighborhood mini quilt:

I cut the strips for my doors a little taller than designer Kim Lapacek’s pattern calls for. That’s because my house fabrics are pretty busy and I wanted to tone down the prints with some longer strips of solid fabrics — or at least fabrics that read as solid. In fact, there’s only one solid, the true red.

The next decision? What to use for the circle that goes in the center. First I auditioned a scrap of the solid red:

I liked it but felt it was too strong. Maybe one of the red prints would work better? I cut a circle out of a scrap and stuck it on:

As much as I like this print (one of my favorites from Corey Yoder’s “Holliberry” line), it seemed to add to the busy-ness of the prints rather than calm them down.

Next I tried one of the greens:

Okay, this is more like what I had in mind. (And you shouldn’t be surprised. Green is my favorite color, after all.)

But then I wondered:  how would it look with a smaller solid red circle on top of the green one?

Oh, yeah! I’m liking this a lot. As Henry Higgins would say, “By George, I think she’s got it!”

But guess what else I’m seeing? A big green button on top of the red circle. Maybe even a smaller red button on top of the green one. What do you think? Can you see it too?

One of the pleasures of working on a project like this is letting it evolve. Each quilter who makes this charming pattern (Dresden Neighborhood by Persimon Dreams) winds up with a unique project, totally subject to the whims and preferences of its maker.

Now that I have a plan, I’ll inset a red circle into a larger green scrap and turn that scrap into a circle so that I can applique it (by hand) into place. Then I’ll be ready to add the batting and backing and turn it into a quilt sandwich.

Working on this project is making me smile. Always a good thing on a cold and rainy January day!