Craft Night was last night. Although I was hostessing I was able to finish another block. A little at a time.
Here is the block I finished last night. I am trying to make sure that the backgrounds are all different, especially since I have enough now. When I started the project in March I only had a few of the black-on-white backgrounds, so some of the early blocks have more than one of the same in the same block. I think that once there are many blocks, that nobody will notice.
I am also trying to ensure that all the foregrounds are not only different colors, but also different values and different motifs. The motifs piece is a little tricky, because you have to worry about size, shape, relationship to other motifs in the same block as well as color. Still the tricky bits are the fun parts.
I am finding that almost every block has some turquoise in it. I have to watch that. Perhaps it could be a unifying element?
I need to work on rooting out more fun prints that I probably wouldn’t use for any other project out of my stash so that they see the light of day at least once. I have a little stack of the corner/foreground pieces that I am working with now, but will root out some others when that stack gets smaller.
I now have 8 blocks, shown above, and the pattern is starting to emerge. I wanted to see them all together and think that they look great. The secondary patterns that are developing are interesting. The colored corner pieces coming together are what you would expect. What I didn’t expect was the secondary pattern from the black-on-white background pieces. They look a bit like petals, which is wonderful. I think when I have four more blocks completed you will really be able to see them well. I am finding that working with these patterned fabrics and bright colors is really fun. I feel like I can use the conversationals and patterned fabrics effectively, which I normally wouldn’t use.
I originally thought I wouldn’t use black in this piece, except for the centers. Never say never. I found a piece of some fun beach fabric with pails on it. Unfortunately, it had a black background. I put one piece in to see how it looks. The pail makes it work, but I don’t think I will be including anymore pieces with black backgrounds. Famous last words.
One of the Craft Chicks started her own blog. It is primarily about knitting, but she talks about various events and other crafts as well. You can check it out at: http://craftchicks.blogspot.com/.