Bloom Where You Are Planted - July 2014 BOM

Twenty! Make that twenty different fabrics. I bought two new ones to use as substitutes. I wasn't liking the fabrics provided in the kit.
 
I bought a purple floral and a green basket-weave.  You'll notice that the green basket-weave is the same pattern as the white basket-weave used for the background.

I really like the way this one turned out. It's brighter and it has better contrast. I think that makes the design of the block stand out better. It almost looks 3-dimensional, like a series of squares laid on top of one other. 

I am also very happy with the way the center pinwheel turned out. That's one of the things I wouldn't have known how to do without Marti Michell's instructions.

Hole in the Wall - June 2014 BOM

Another month, another BOM, another fabric. We're halfway through the year and we're up to 18 different fabrics. Maybe 19?

A new fabric showed up this month. It's also in the corners of the green square. Can't say that I like it.

For some types of quilts, that many fabrics would look great. I don't like it for a sampler quilt. You've already got 12 different blocks. You need something to unify it.

I don't have any life lessons to share this month. I guess that's good . . .?

Ladies Sashay - May 2014 BOM

Here is the extremely pale green fabric from March in the center, and barely detectable in the outer corners. I didn't fussy-cut it. I was just lucky that the piece I got actually looks like something.

The extremely pale yellow fabric is new. It's not the same as the yellow used in April. It looks pretty good next to the black pinwheels. I'm not sure it works next to the grey.

There are two new versions of the snakeskin. Despite the directionality, I like the snakeskin, though I would not have chosen the grey. At least I got the "stripes" going in alternating directions insted of that awkward 3-and-1 thing from last month. Since you are only given a small piece to work with, I don't think it would be possible to cut these so that all of the stripes are going in the same direction on the finished block. 

It actually looks correct on the grey snakeskin pieces because all of the stripes run crosswise rather than lengthwise on their pieces. With the pink snakeskin triangles the orientation of the stripes is a little jarring.

I think the points turned out quite nicely. :) Now I'm just gonna sashay on out of here.

Lesson learned:

If you think something is too pale (I'm talking to you, light green triangles), just go ahead and substitute something else. It is likely to be an improvement.

Waring Square - April 2014 BOM

I don't have that much to say about this month's block. I used a lot of my coral pinwheel substitute fabric on this one.

I'll be interested to see whether any future kits this year will contain any of the yellow, pink or pastel blue fabric that was in the April kit.

Lesson Learned:

Iron your block before photographing it.

Nesting Ducklings - March 2014 BOM

The learning curve is still here!

The four pink triangles in the outer corners are made from a single piece of fabric. Because of the pattern on the fabric I ended up with one triangle with dots, two with spirals and one with V's and dots. I didn't have any extra fabric to fussy-cut, so I had to make do with the fabric that came in the kit.

I think the pink fabric would be really pretty if you used it in a quilt that only had a few different fabrics and if the pink was used a lot. It doesn't work if the pink is only used a tiny bit and there are lots of fabrics a lot of the fabrics are similar. 

Which brings me to my next point. Here we have a close-up of the fabric used for the eight pinkish triangles in the center square. 

I'm going to call it "snakeskin" so it will be easier to follow along. I have no idea what it is really called. I believe this snakeskin fabric was provided in the kit. I liked it, but it turned out not to work as well as I expected.

The eight snakeskin triangles don't contrast very much with the four outer pink triangles. Luckily, the contrast is a little stronger in good light than it appears in the photo. 

The snakeskin also turns out to be a fabric that does not work so well if you have too much else going on and you are using very small pieces of it.
 
But, the bigger problem with the snakeskin triangles is the directionality of the print. I didn't realize this issue until later. When I first started working with the snakeskin, I "saw" an interesting swirl of colors and some dots. I didn't "see" that the dots formed parallel lines until much later. By that time, I had finished the block without realizing that I had three of the larger triangles going vertically and one going horizontally. That is not the look I was aiming for.

Finally, I'm not thrilled with the inner light green squares. I think it is a beautiful print, but the scale of the print is too large for the scale of the piecing, and the color is so pale that there is not enough contrast with the white background pieces.

Lessons Learned:
1. Avoid directional prints. There won't always be an obvious stripe, so look at the pattern carefully.
2. Avoid small-scale patterns if they only repeat on a large scale, such as the pink fabric.
3. Avoid large-scale patterns, such as the light green. You lose the design when you cut it up into small pieces.
4. Avoid low-contrast fabrics, especially when they are going to be touching.

Mexicali Rosie - February 2014 BOM

Here is the second 2014 BOM. I have already substituted some of the fabric. I think I threw out the little color pictures they give us to show the placements for your particular color run after I finished the blocks, but I have a pretty good idea which fabrics I substituted. It really matters whether you follow the little picture because you only get enough fabric to do it the way it is in the picture. If you want to do something different, you have to use your own fabric.

The coral pinwheel fabric is one that I bought to use for substitutions. It is the same design as the black pinwheels, but with very different colors.

The "kit" came with two different black prints.

I thought they were way too similar, especially if they were going to be placed next to each other, so I used the coral pinwheel fabric instead of the second black print.

I do not like the grey fabric in the corners. It doesn't go well with the other prints. It is similar to a Fossil Fern print, but with Baroque damask-style curlicues, and it looks out of place to me, both in terms of color and design. I will not be using it again.

Except for the grey, I am very pleased with this block.

Five Geese Flying - January 2014 BOM

Here is my first block for the year.

Ignore the dark sashing on the sides.

Note the white fabrics

There are two different white fabrics. One has a faint basket-weave print, and one has a random curved line print. The contrast is so subtle that the difference between the two fabrics is barely noticeable. It doesn't seem worth the effort of using both fabrics. If I were to do this project again, I would substitute something here.

I also feel that the values of the geese triangles don't work. Except for the black ones, they all should have been darker. The central square should have been something with a medium value. With this arrangement you don't "get" the geese. in addition, I'm not sure how they came up with "five" geese.

Lesson learned: Start substituting and re-arranging with the very first BOM block, even if you don't have any idea what the other blocks are going to look like. Follow your instincts. You may also choose to follow the general tones suggested by Marti Michell in the black and white instructions. In addition to her good use of contrast, she uses fewer fabrics, and I think this leads to a more cohesive result.