Plot Twist!

   I had so much trouble trying to decide which of my colour choices (aqua, navy, gold plan) to use for which of Bonnie’s colours that I went back to the intro and read again. I was hoping that would give me some guidance and what Bonnie said about the design revolving around colour families made me rethink my plan. Don’t worry, I’m saving this fabric pull for another quilt that I’m more sure of, not a mystery!
   I realized her colours were almost a rainbow. I considered using deep purple as my neutral, wondering what that would look like. I LOVE rainbow quilts and I quickly got excited about this idea, but this would still leave out the yellow, and I’d be stuck trying to find a way to work it in to complete a full rainbow.
  Also, I don’t like purple right next to red and the first step would have had me making neutral (purple) and red four patches, so I noped out of that idea too.
 I decided to go closer to Bonnie’s colours after all. To change it up a little though, I went to my batik scrap drawer.
I pulled navy blues, staying away from anything that read bright, light, or cobalt, since I just issued those tones in On Ringo Lake.  Then I pulled all the reds, including everything from the pinky tones to the bright China reds and even some deep burgundy. I pulled all the bright oranges, which tended to not have a lot of range. I guess when I buy orange fabric, I always grab the same tone of orange. For the greens, I threw back anything that read even slightly as aqua or teal, and kept the rich bottle greens. I wasn’t loving how the orange looked ugh the other fabrics, and Bonnie has a lot of orange in this quilt. So, I pulled the China gold tones, too.
 Then, I laid them out in different groupings, pairing the oranges with reds and pinks.
Then the golds with both reds and pinks.
I took a few steps back and gave myself a few days to really let these colours sink into my eyes and brain, and I’m going with the upper left option. I’m leaving orange out entirely, and using the rich golds instead.
   I’m still focusing on precision, that goal has not changed. I’m working slowly and letting this sewing time do its magic on my holiday addled soul. Patchwork really helps me calm down so I’m embracing the process. I was just going to make a dozen units, but I was feeling pretty good so I kept sewing. I did not make all the units that Bonnie calls for in her pattern clue, but I have a good start with 46 four patches.