The color for March is GREEN! A color I have a fair assortment of in my stash and some in my scrap pile already. As I have a busy month planned out, and I want to spend this weekend sandwiching a quilt, I knocked out my six Modern Blocks for the month this week.
First step was to generate my random numbers. It took 15 this month to get unique numbers, one for each chapter. After sleeping on it, I realized I was missing a block with triangles, so went back to my lists, figured out where I wrote a number down that was out of the range for chapter 3, and sorted it out.
By Wednesday, I had all my fabric chosen and cut to the instructions on the hidden page (under the fabric - this is a great book by the way - very easy to follow). When I started cutting for block 97, I decided the chosen focus fabric was larger than I wanted (and I would have lost a bit of the fat quarter to fussy cutting), so I went back to my stash and found a fabric I like both for this block and for this month's Table Scraps project.
Block 4 gave me the most fits in terms of fabric choice as it calls for 5 fabrics that play together nicely. I eventually decided that the batik which contributed the center square would also work for the inner pieces as well as there was a great deal of variation in the fabric with both a really light background and a green background at work. Problem solved. This was also the most fiddly of the month to assemble due to the directional fabric in the corners.
Once I found the focus fabric for block 29, I had fun playing with the rest of the fabric selections. I really like the bird! I decided to reverse the contrast in the sample block.
Block 42, flying geese. One of my least favorite pieces to assemble. I probably should have pressed seams differently as it bulges in the center. I'll be pressing that into submission for a bit. I predict we will see this fun floral sky when blue month rolls around again. On the plus side, my accuracy in assembling flying geese is greatly improving. Note the crisp points!
This month yielded two extremely easy blocks, which was a nice rest from the fiddly block 4 and the flying geese of block 42. The challenge in block 58 was finding four fabrics to play nicely together. My original choice for the white strip 'vanished' and I didn't find it again until after all six blocks were cut. I like my substitution as the tonal swirl echoes the batik nicely.
Block 82 is my other super simple block for the month. The most complex part was in the cutting to get some interesting bits of the batik into the block.
Block 97 - I decided I wanted a smaller motif for the focus fabric, so I found a beach themed fabric instead. I'm looking forward to using it again this month - and who knows, this one may show up again in future months.
