Playing with Pastels

Let me start off by saying that, despite seeing a whole lot of Cherry Baby fabrics hanging out here lately, I'm not really a pastel person. There's nothing wrong with pastels. They're cool. They're lovely. I just tend to gravitate to more saturated colors. But, as most of you know, sometimes fabrics just call to you. They say "play with me". And hey, who am I to ignore it when fabric is talking?

First step to play with fabrics? Yeah, that would have been clean the mess in my sewing area. Here's an "after" shot. Still a few things on the table (it's never REALLY clear -- but, getting ready to sew now takes all of 2 minutes rather than the hour and 1/2 it took to get it to this point).

And then, while I do have a few other projects I need to get to -- I played. I will have the "need to finish" projects done this week -- but, well, some bad news over the weekend kind of sent me into a place where I needed to play. I needed to remember that while this winter seems to have been dragging on forever, the world won't seem like it's in perpetual hibernation forever -- and that there is rebirth and renewal that will come.

So, this is what I came up with. In a few ways it's totally unlike what I usually do. It's pastel for one thing. And then, well, it's a pretty darned traditional quilt piecing design. (I like traditional designs, I just don't make very many of them) Of course, I did add my own "twist" to the traditional -- but, hmmm...

I'm just not sure it works. I had an idea for a series of four of these little quilts (this one is about 18 1/2 by 18 1/2). I was going to play with different border and edge treatments and kind of do an ode to spring (and yes, one of them in a slightly smaller size to accommodate borders was going to be for my Four Season's Swap). I also had some vague ideas of doing some embroidery embellishment to the top. I'm just not sure it's worth continuing on with -- or whether I should call the experiment a bust and start over.

I think part of the problem is lack of contrast in the fabrics. The design I chose (bonus points if you can tell what the design IS -- I'm not sure I can and I made it) is one that should have a bit more contrast. Maybe I was being influenced by all of the lovely blended quilts (the link takes you to Nicole's finished challenge quilts, but the post has links to others) I was seeing last month?

Part of the problem is surely my own fault -- I'm usually of the "more fabrics is better" school of thought (why use one or two when you can use 10 or 20?). And I did that here -- maybe confining myself to 5 or 10 would have been better than the, um, I think 30 or so I did use? (gotta love those jelly rolls -- oh, yeah, that was how I got into this mess in the first place) But seriously folks -- here's a bit of a closeup with the sun shining on it, how could I have chosen just a few of these fabrics?

I guess the question now is whether to keep on trucking with this experiment or not? Any advice, opinions? For those of you involved in the Four Seasons swap -- um, would you hate something like this (though not this one) in your mailbox? I welcome some good, constructive criticism here. In the meantime -- I have a few "have to finish it" projects that are calling out to me. Oh yeah, and some blog reading to catch up on, oh, and laundry, grocery shopping, etc. I suppose it will keep me out of trouble. But oh, I really want to play!