By Jove ...

... I think she's got it!

My first block for the Country Charmer QAL, hosted by Lesley, (see the button on my sidebar) is what I'm on about.

I have had problems with my fabric selection for this quilt, and yesterday, after completely throwing all my toys out of the pram and wailing "I can't do it", my friend Bilbo came to the rescue.  Unfortunately, she lives over 150 miles away, so she didn't physically ride in on her white charger, but telephones and digital cameras are wonderful things.  She talked me through what the problems were, and then it was obvious.

All my fabrics co-ordinate beautifully, but there was no contrast between them, so everything was sort of mooshing (if there is such a word) together.

So then I dragged out some hand-dyed fabrics that I dyed last year plus a bright (very, very bright) orange to throw into the mix.

Photos sent to Bilbo again, and we rejected the green as there was no other hint of green in my fabrics.  The pink and red went next, as they were too similar to the other fabrics - me co-ordinating again, so that left the orange.


At first, I thought I'd use the orange for the chains in the design, but Bilbo persuaded me to try it in the triangles instead and to keep that as a constant through every block.

So if you're still with me, here is my first block, and I LOVE it!