Vol 2 - Project 7 - Card Trick - John's Quilt

January has been a month of birthdays, weddings and a funeral - trips interstate, lots of socialising and very little sewing.  After finishing off the bug quilt I took a little sewing break - actually to be honest, I kind of lost my sewing mojo there for a bit.  I have a quilt partially quilted and my plan was to finish that before moving onto this next project, but the mood just wasn't there.  I decided that piecing, although less fun than quilting, was what suited my mood - and also made John happy as he chose this quilt for himself months ago and is getting decidedly impatient!

JOHN'S CHOICES
John was instantly drawn to the Card Trick project as soon as I received the book and reserved it for his quilt. 

His next job was to select the fabrics.  He very quickly chose a black background then picked out 4 colours in brights for the blocks.  He does want to point out that he chose the brights-on-black combination long before Julie did for her quilt (Project 5 - Cabin in the Cotton - Julie's Quilt)!

Great selection John!

MAKING THE BLOCKS

Now a more experienced quilter would probably have known that these fabrics are not right for this block design.  I know now!

I made and cut the strips and plonked them up un-sewn, on the design wall.  See what happens when these fabrics are made into the card trick block.

Either there is a lack of contrast in the colours or the patterns are blending together too much to get the full effect of the card trick block.

I also have another problem with these fabrics.  I only had just enough of the yellow and green hand dyes - and of course, in a senior moment, cut some of the strips to the wrong size, leaving me short.  Hmmmm.

My options were to leave the project until I could get some more fabric, or get creative.  I dived into my stash and came up with a couple of alternatives.............

Not bad - pretty close in fact.

I didn't have enough of the green (I only had a fat quarter) to re-do all the yellow and green strips, so I made an executive decision to mix in the alternate fabrics with the originals.  Having realised that the blocks weren't going to have the proper effect anyway, I was happy with the substitutes.  Here's what a mixed block will look like...........

No matter that the 'trick' of the block doesn't quite work - I like the fabrics and think the quilt will look fabulous anyway!  The important thing for me is that I understand how to make the block and if I do it again, I'll have a clue as to fabric selection for it. 

Up on the design wall I'm seeing that 'blending' effect which I like so much