I’ve had two homespun plaid fabrics sitting out for months, from the last time I made a couple of Sunshine and Shadow Starburst blocks. As usual, I think I’m going to get around to them the next time I walk into the sewing room, but I get distracted by numerous other things.
So I started with the turquoise homespun plaid, and the first fabric I pulled to go with it was the yellow and light turquoise Tula fabric. From there, I thought about using the dark green dotted fabric from the recent Aunt Beulah’s Arrowheads block. It seemed at first to be a good coordinate, but as I started trying to pull for the middle fabric, it just wasn’t working. So I found a darker teal “striped” print, and then dug around to find the right middle fabric color. Most were too dark or too light, but I think this dusky aqua floral print works well, and actually matches the value of the original plaid/check pretty well.
And for some reason, even though it takes a while to put these blocks together, they just feel happy.
I’m beginning to think that making a quilt one block at a time, pulling each color or set of colors as I go (even if they are from strips and not full fabric pieces) may just be how I enjoy quilting the most. It certainly does take more time than having a set of fabrics and doing one type of units at a time. But I do love the variety (and I tend to love a lot of color in the quilts that I enjoy making).