The challenge for January was to make an Asian-inspired block. I had no idea what to make, but Mary Jo Hiney saved my hiney! She has the most amazing paper-pieced patterns in this book.
My first choice was to make the crane below, but my goal is to use up my stash and to NOT buy new fabric. It didn't seem like my on-hand fabrics were going to work with the requested color scheme of saffron, rusts, golds and greens.
Anyhoo, a lot of trial and error and gnashing of teeth went into this block. Is there anyone out there who gets the color combination right the first time? If so, I want to know your secret.
I tried three different combinations before I finally came up with something I liked, although I would have preferred to have had a subtly patterned light background rather than just the plain light yellow that was in my stash.
In the first two, the kimonos didn't 'pop' because the background color blended in too much with the kimono fabric. I loved the third fabric, but it seemed like the scale of the print was too big for such a mini kimono. Anyway, the kimono finally 'popped' against a lighter background.
And wouldn't you know it, I ended up using the first 'kimono' fabric that I had picked out. I should learn to trust my instincts.
And, here's a retro video for your viewing entertainment.
I loved this post Kathy. Those little kimonos would make a cute wall hanging...Now I want to check out that book!
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