Auditioning Backgrounds for the Hexagons

The new design for my hexagons has wider borders, so it is not going to fit onto a fat quarter any more. Yesterday I was auditioning backgrounds. My original plan was to use this fabric from my stash:

When I was redesigning it, though, I kept thinking of a wood grain fabric that Connecting Threads used to have. I liked the idea of the flower vine "climbing up" a wooden wall. But, it's all sold out now, so I found this striped fabric that I hoped would give a similar effect:

And then, lo and behold, after I ordered the stripe, I found a yard of the wood grain fabric in my washing pile! I forgot that I bought it. Here it is:

It is interesting what a great design tool this blog is. When I started to write, I was sure that the stripe would be the winner. I thought the wood grain was too dark and it didn't really "read" as wood. But now I am not so sure! The first one is definitely out, now I am seeing a greenish undertone in that one that leans too far in the dreaded "baby poop" direction. But I think I'm on the fence between the wood grain and the stripe.

What do you all think?

New Plan for the Hexagons

Remember this?

We all had a debate back in June about the half hexagons along the sides. I finally decided to take out the ones in the corners, but leave the rest. They were not easy to remove, which reassures me that the whole thing will be very sturdy!

My plan at the time was to put this panel in the centre of an appliqued border from Lori Smith's book, Fat Quarter Quilting. This is the quilt I had in mind:

Part of the delay, though, has been that while I really like the idea of the vines and birds, I don't love the flowers themselves. This month I started to play around with something that I might like better, and this is what I came up with:

This is just a little sketch on a 4" x 6" notepad. I have found that it is much easier to make a small sketch, and then enlarge it all later. Also, with these notepads the paper is thin enough that you can put a previous sketch underneath and trace the parts you like and revise the rest. I went through three iterations on this with very little fuss. I did the same thing when I made the template for the flowers.

I thought quite a bit about making the flowers in the borders from hexagons too. I figured that using hexagons that were half the size of the ones in the centre panel would be the right scale. Those hexagons are 3/4", so the flower hexagons would be 3/8". I actually like the challenge of using the small pieces, but when I auditioned some hexagons beside the centre panel, it all felt too stiff. It's just too much, and I like the contrast between the symmetrical hexagon centre and the looser, "fluffier" round-petaled flowers better. I don't have a photo of that, unfortunately. You will have to take my word for it!

Tomorrow I'll show you my debate about the background fabric.