Arcadia Avenue - Fly Away (block 1)

Welcome to post 3 of the Arcadia Avenue QAL - where the fun really begins! We have a lot in this post, so keep scrolling! First up, we are dying to share our first blocks with you!

Shayla's Block:

As you know, a low volume quilt is pretty far outside of my comfort zone, but I absolutely love how this block turned out! I used 12 different low volume fabrics for the colors, 12 different pinks as the darks and a medium grey thumbprint tone-on-tone for the light. My low volume prints varied quite a bit and a few of them lend themselves to fussy cutting! I am pretty excited to get started on block two!

Kristy's Blocks:

I wanted to make my quilt completely from my stash- so I pretty much stayed within my comfort zone! Instead of 12 different colors, I have pulled a bunch of yummy teal, blue, purple and a few green batiks from my scrap bins to keep this version super scrappy! My dark is one fabric, a navy batik, that has a hint of green and my light is an off white batik with a faint leaf print. I wanted a pop of color, so I chose hot pink as my medium - and I have about 12 of them to keep that scrappy too! The pink is a little outside my usual go-to color palette so we shall see how much of it shows up in my blocks. =]  

All that being said, I ended up making block one twice. My first attempt had way too much pink (although it has grown on me a little...). I used the pink in place of the dark and just couldn't live with it, so in my second attempt I place the light and dark as it is in the pattern, I then had my colors going around the hexagon instead of straight down. I added just a tiny bit of pink putting it in section 7 to make a ring of pink near the center of the block. I'm not positive I'm 100% sold on my fabric placement choices for this block, but I'm also not sure I can make myself sew it again...We'll see how ambitious I am as the quilt progresses! Which block do you like better?

Shared Block:

We liked the idea of each of the 12 blocks having it's own focus color, so we just couldn't resist making another quilt! Here is our Fly Away block made up with pink as the focus color. It is kind of fun to compare it to Shayla's block. Same pink fabrics, just a different use - one as the main focus and one as an accent! Next block's color will be red.

Before you get sewing, we have a few tips!

1. Check out our tutorial for some pointers on getting a perfect (and flat) center.
2. Don't layer your foundations on top of one another when you are ironing! Sometimes ink will transfer to the fabric below the paper. 

We also couldn't resist trying out a few alternate colorings on this block! It lends itself to some fun and different design options.

1. Snailing Around - Try snailing the colors around the block and using 2 darks fabrics for the light and dark positions. 
2. Flower Power - Create a flower (or sun) by placing fabrics to gradate from dark to light and using the same fabric for 3 pieces in a row.
3. Value Reverse - Try reversing the values by placing the colors in the background and the light/dark fabrics in the flying geese.
4. Optical Illusion - Create a trippy block with two contrasting fabrics by making all the A and B foundations opposites.

There are a few overachievers (it is a term of endearment! =] ) that have already made or are pretty far into their Fly Away blocks. They are looking good ladies!

• top left: Teresa Raleigh's block in a fun bright sunset color combination.
• top right: Allyson Talbott's block in a cool color combination with green, teal, blue, grey and white.
• bottom left: Terry Maimone's block in pretty pastel batiks with a pop of navy.
• bottom right: Denniele Bohannon's block in colorful Dear Stella dots.

And last but not least, we picked another winner for a small little prize! We chose Samantha Rosin for sharing this photo of her little one with her swatch sheet:

Now your turn! We want to see how your blocks turn out! If you have a blog please link up with us using the link-up tool below any time before the next post on 2/16/15. If you don't, we have started a Flickr group so you can add your photos there! We will pick another winner for a small giveaway from everyone who participates. This is one of the tougher blocks, so don't give up after this one!

First time here, no problem! Join in the fun. Read up on the previous posts here and begin when it works for you! Be sure to use the #ArcadiaAvenueQAL hashtag on Instagram and Twitter too! Thanks for stopping by!