Pinwheel Problems

I started making this top yesterday, from a thumbnail sketch, with the plan to use the darks and lights which were left from two different previously made tops. Construction was going along just fine, until I put it up on the wall and felt underwhelmed. Perhaps if I turned 9o degrees, I would like it better...

I don't know if this is the 90 degree turn I had in mind, so I tried it again another way,

And that didn't do if for me either, so there was one more placement to try, so again I moved it.

Nothing.

Actually less than nothing...just DULL.

O, you say it looks OK but I was hoping for a bit more than OK. I stewed about it most of the night, in my sleep, which I can do very well thank you, allowing my subconcious to solve the problems my concious mind cannot. You've done this too, I am sure. Maybe not on purpose, but we've all heard the refrain, why don't we just sleep on it tonight and I'm sure in the morning you'll begin to see the light, (there must be 50 ways to fix your quilt top).

When I awoke this morning I knew what to do. I would have to cut it up somehow and rearrange it. The layout was just too static and straightforward. It looks like a great big pinwheel block. How imaginative is that? NOT.

Get out the big guns! Fear and Avoidance are rearing their ugly heads.

I had stuff to do this morning before I went down to the studio: email, blog reading, even getting orders for patterns filled and ready to take to the post office. If I have to leave the house, I may as well stop and get a card for my brother's birthday and take back the tapes to the library and then go to the post office and mail stuff. When that was taken care of and new library books and tapes were chosen, then it was lunch time... and one must peruse the new book for a minute and check email again etc. etc. and have a cup of tea and finally, reluctantly, I went down and started on the big fix.

I decided to take advantage of the digital camera that is my sidekick in my studio, helping me see the quilt in different ways and eliminating distractions so that the composition is viewable in one clear shot. I took my quilt's picture and printed it out four times on good paper and then proceeded to cut each of the pictures up and rearrange the pieces in search of a better, more exciting composition. There was just one that looked as if it would work so I set upon the quilt with my handy-dandy-marking-soap sliver and drew the proposed cutting lines, while the quilt top was pinned to the design wall.

Then I took it down and cut it up and rearranged and filled in the gaps and trimmed off hangovers and voila, I had a much better, less static, more challenging design.

Now which way do I like it best?
this way ?

Or this way?

I am not sure if I like the look of this better or if it's just that I like the solution better? The fact that I had the courage to cut it apart and reassemble it, probably carries the most weight in my new found satisfaction.

I will quilt it tomorrow and then I can honestly call it New Work #4.