Fabric Challenge Finish - Juggling Snowballs

I finished my fabric challenge quilt on Thursday, like I planned.  Yesterday was photograph / hang-it-up day.

For the pattern, I chose Charlotte from 3 Times the Charm!    That's a great book - 7 cute patterns for only $9.95.  More of these patterns in my future, for sure.

The quilt is just over 31" square, which is about 1/2" shorter than the pattern says it should be.  Somebody doesn't sew very accurate 1/4" seams.

This was our challenge fabric - Juggling Summer, part of Moda's Zen Chic collection by Brigette Heitland.  

The quilt pattern is a combination of snowballs and bow ties, so my quilt was either going to be named Juggling Snowballs or Juggling Bow Ties.  I went with snowballs, since that shape is more prominent. 

Last December, I joined a Modern Quilting Club sponsored by my local quilting store.  For 2015, the book we're using is Lucky Spool's Essential Guide to Modern Quilt Making.   In January we covered the chapter on Color, and after the leader asked us which two colors we dislike as a combination (mine were red and brown), she challenged us to go ahead and use them in a quilt.

I added a little of both of them, and since they aren't the entire color palette, it worked for me.  It also opened my mind to the possibility of using colors I don't like, and somehow making them work.

The other thing we talked about was value (lightness/darkness) and this quilt has a mix of light, medium, and dark fabrics.  I don't always do that in my quilts (because I don't think about it), but I think this mix is one reason why this turned out to be one of my favorite quilts.

The inner border is 1" strips of the block fabric, and I had enough of one of the fabrics to use for the binding.  Luckily, that fabric pulled together all the colors.

For the back, I was originally tempted to go with a piece of fabric that was large enough so that I wouldn't need to do any piecing.  Trouble was, it didn't go with the front, and I didn't the fabric at all.  I discussed this earth-shaking quandary with my husband who pointed out I would always be thinking about the fabric on the back that I didn't like.  But what else would I do with it, I asked?  If you don't like it, give it away, he said.  

Can't argue with logic.  So I went ahead and pieced a back that I like.  It has nice warm colors that complement the front.

What's with that humongous quilt label?  Well, it's all the fault of the bright yellow fabric I used for the hanging sleeve.

It stood out like a sore thumb, so I decided to use it in my bow tie label.  Then I wanted an aqua border, but I didn't have enough to make it very wide, so I couldn't stop there.  I decided to add a dark color (now that I know about value), but I didn't have much of that either, since I was pulling all these from my scrap drawers.  Ooh, a little pink would be pretty, but then that didn't pop enough against the background.  Hence the chartreuse green.  By this time, the label was almost as big as the quilt back, so I made myself stop.