Block number 14 is Betty – you can find Angie at Gnome Angel’s tutorial for this block here.
Alyce at Blossom Heart Quilts is the guest blogger for Betty – you can find her tutorial here.
Betty is a block that needs some extra thought when it comes to fabric choice. It’s important that there is adequate contrast between the three fabrics or the block pattern will become lost at best, or a hot mess at worst. Guess how I know this? Guess who made two lots of these blocks!?
My first version was almost right. I had good contrast between the low-volume yellow and orange fabrics, but my third fabric was too close in value to the orange, even with the busy, colourful pattern. Once put together all the cute little HSTs disappeared and blended in with the orange background. It was even worse when I made the four square.
Next time around I made sure there was plenty of contrast between all my fabrics – low volume yellow, deep saturated mustard and navy.
Once I had that decision right, my next choice was how to orient my blocks within my four square layout. Should I go this way:
Or that way:
I like them both, but I like the first one the most. However, knowing how I wanted the entire quilt to look, I chose the latter version as there isn’t much scope for circular shapes compared to crosses amongst the blocks I’ve selected.
I rotary cut all these blocks, oversizing my HSTs and cutting them back with my bloc loc rulers. It made for accurate piecing, although a few of my points were a smidgen off (I can live with it).
For those of you who saw my last post on the Bonnie block, I did end up unpicking my two fussy cuts and reorienting them:
Much better. But I think my next block needs to get away from the navy/mustard theme, no matter how good it looks.
And finally, if you’ve made it this far, here’s a little something for you if fabric shopping is in your future:
Happy sewing, all!
Looks like this will be an interesting learning experience Kirsty! I am loving your navy and mustard fabric choices.
I really like that you shared with us what you consider to be the less successful block.
I love the way you are working with these blocks and choosing the ones you want to work with. The two you four squares you have completed so far work really well together.
I am looking forward to seeing how your work progresses.
Those blocks really are tricky when it comes to fabric choice! I’ve played it quite safe with my Betty block (got it cut and sewn today! :-)) and I have a feeling that the smaller the pieces will get the trickier the fabric selection to achieve maximum impact will be! I hope you still can use your first set of blocks somehow, maybe in another project! I love how these blocks look in the 4-block layout! It’s so cool to see those patterns emerging! And the mustard and navy combo is stunning! Thank you for sharing your process!
i just wanted to say, i’ve read your last two posts about your process for the quilt along, and i love that you’ve come up with your own plan! and it’s so unique- that tile inspiration photo is perfect. can’t wait to see where it goes. thanks for sharing a little bit of creative inspiration.