Fabric Challenge - Bow Ties

Bow Ties is a new block for me.  And this is the first time I've made a fabric challenge quilt.  Might as well do two new things at the same time.

Yesterday I finished making the 36 blocks.  The center one has the challenge fabric.  

The challenge fabric didn't have many other colors in it, and I didn't want it to be the only dark fabric.  So I used two other blacks which had more colors in them.  Then I used all three of them to pull together my colors.  I have to admit that they don't look too pulled together here.

Here they do.  It must be the cream linen that's throwing me off.

These look OK together, except for maybe the purple one.  Since I only had one 6" square of that fabric, it seemed destined for a scrappy quilt and its time has come.

 These look really striking together.  I don't like red, but I sure like it here.

And I love green, so I had to throw a lot of that in.  

I'm using a pattern from 3 Times the Charm, and I think the whole idea behind it is that you're supposed to use all the squares from one charm pack.  That probably would look better, but good luck finding any charm pack that goes with any challenge fabric.  Of the 18 fabrics I'm using, 9 of them are from the same charm pack - the other 9 didn't work, so I took 9 from my stash.

I guess that's why they call it a challenge.  Now I'll start moving these around and see if I can come up with something I like.  Wish me luck.