Midnight in the Tropics - Block 2

So, block 2 and honeysuckle flowers. For me, selecting the fabrics to use is still the hardest part of any quilting project. I get bogged down with too yellow, too light, too much contrast, too wild, too overpowering. It's just too much too! I started by pulling out all my yellows because I decided I wanted my all four of my honeysuckle flowers to be yellow...nice, bright, bold yellows. With maybe a bit of orangey-red thrown in. Just because.

The first fabric I used is this batik. I love batiks because the fabric has so many possibilities, especially if the pattern is random like in this piece. I struggled with how to position the pattern until I decided to think of the darker stars as shadows falling across the flower; some are closer and some farther away just like they would be in any garden. Oh man, is that artistic thinking or what?

I got this great yellow and red piece of fabric at my favorite quilt shop (http://www.creekside-quilting.com/) in Des Moines, IA during a business trip. It reminds me of fireworks exploding in a summer sky.

I've had this yellow-on-yellow fabric with the tiny squares for many years. I loved it when I bought it and still do.

I went through a phase where yellow didn't fit into anything I did, so this fabric sat in my stash, patiently waiting for its time to come. In my everything-is-black-and-white-technical-writer-world, the squares needed to be cut in perfect little up and down lines. It certainly couldn't be set at an angle! Setting things at an angle was, well, it was a bit daring for me.

And maybe a bit too artistic.

And anyone who knows me, knows I'm not typically either of those things.

Realizing that there is no right or wrong for pattern placement when it comes to applique was a light-bulb moment for me. Really.

I know light-bulb moments for most poeple are life-changing; earth-shattering even. Me? Well, I take whatever light-bulb moments I can get, no matter how small or insignificant they may seem to others.

The fabric in this next block is a companion fabric from a Laurel Burch collection that features a mermaid and various sea creatures -- it's a darn cute collection and someday I'm going to make a sea-life Laurel Burch wallhanging with the mermaid as the focus. It's going to be daring. And artistic. And I'll smile every time I look at it. But I digress.

So, here's the block with all the flowers on it. And while I questioned doing all the flowers in yellows, I do like the final result. I am trying to keep a bit of consistency among the individual blocks (the technical writer in me still demands a bit of standardization). For this block, it's the stamen. The fabric I chose has a lot of bright tones and a bit of gold sparkle to it.

Two down, two to go! (Did you just hear that big sigh of relief from me?)

One last note: there will be small leaves scattered on both of these blocks. Like the stems, I'm planning to go wild and use different fabrics for each leaf.

Because I'm daring.

Really.