A new Challenge Series begins

Dorry is always the one to come up with these great ideas and organize groups of quilters to stretch and create quilts beyond our comfort zones! We finished the June Bride series when the Bride finally had her day, so now we're on to a one-year-long/four quilt project that will also have vintage quilt blocks as the starting point.  This series is based on the seasons, the first being Spring.  I got my block a week or two ago.

We are to include the color Green in these quilts. I thought I might be able to use some of the green and yellow fabrics I had for Dana's quilt, but that was before I saw this particular pink. Except for the fabrics than included black, most of the fabrics I had looked too toned compared to this coral sort of pink and I didn't want black for spring.

I looked at my floral prints that included bright pink. Since pink and green are a common combination, I get a feeling that for me, starting with these would take something away from the challenge. I've taken that approach before, with two of the fabrics in this group, actually. The roses on the left would be a challenge if I were to incorporate all the tonal browns, so I was leaning that way, but I'm not sure the combination would read 'spring' very loudly in a 24"x24" quilt.

You might rightly protest that the peony on the lower right is not a fabric.  It's a card Dorry sent on another recent occasion, a print of a watercolor by Great Falls Studio Artist Linda Jones. The bright pinks with the dark green is a winning combination. Linda's palette adds a touch of orange and a hint of purple to the mix -- but I used that in my Reston quilt based on the fabric just above it.  I haven't quite decided yet, but have spent some time on color-palette websites to get an interesting and challenging combination that might not be found in my fabric collection.

After the colors decision, the problem of how to incorporate the vintage block in a quilt remains. I have made no secret of the fact that I prefer geometric fabric shapes just make geometric patterns without trying to represent real objects like a boat. I cut up the last of the June Bride blocks to use it like fabric - but only because I hadn't done that before and wanted to try it.  I think for this quilt I will try to use the original shapes, if not all of the original piecing. We are as always supposed to use just about all of that vintage block for the challenge. Hmmm.... I wonder what kind of block uses that boat-bottom shape?