Hey Everyone, welcome back to Stitch Along Sunday and Stash Blasting Wednesday.

I’ve been looking back at the background that I created in A Winter Theme – Part 1 and feel that it is just too dark. When I saw the picture I took of the pieces slightly apart on a light background with the cream showing through I really liked how the lighter fabric toned down the dark fabric.

I tried a few different fabrics and decided on one of the fabrics from the checkerboard to add to the vertical strip pieced background. It looks so much better now.

Light fabric added in amongst the dark fabric

I was also a bit concerned that the checkerboard bottom was a bit too much so auditioned the fabrics on their own as well as a lighter one.

Fabric 1

Stripes in blue with a brush stroke blue fabric on the bottom

Brush stroke fabric

Fabric 2

blue stripes on top and swirls on the bottom

Swirls for the bottom

Fabric 3

dark stripes on top and light blue on the bottom

Light blue for the bottom

I came back to my first idea with the checkerboard. My grandmother always said to go with your first instinct as it is usually the right one especially when writing multiple choice exams.

Next decision was to decide on whether or not to go with a straight horizon line or slightly angled.

Angled Horizon

Bottom checkerboard on an angle to the top blue stripes

Angled horizon

Straight Horizon

Straight horizon

I decided to go with a straight one because in reality it usually is straight. I didn’t centre it either as I went with the rule of thirds on dividing up the canvas.

With the background finally made I can work on the foreground. A little bit of appliqué is in order but I’ll leave that for another day when my eyes are not at half mast and it isn’t dark outside. I definitely have a design in mind along with an idea of the fabrics I will use.

How are your pieces coming along? Make sure to send in a picture and I’ll post them here along with mine.

Happy Quilting!