WIP Wednesday: Jewels in the Mud

I'm having total writer's block.  I was going to talk about how you can mess around with color on modern patterns to make them appeal to more traditional palettes, and how very traditional patterns can be made more modern by using strange color combinations...and I was going to say something about how those "ugly" muddy colors (to me) are kind of heinous on their own but they can make gorgeous colors glow...but I don't know how to make that all pair up to sound good and how to segway into "hey check out this sample I'm making."  I guess it's just one of those brain fart days! 

So here's what I'm working on now...a traditional pattern...

I am really fond of churn dash blocks (why, I don't know), and I really like this pattern, but those colors.  No, no, no, no, no.  Do not like.  So I decided to tweak the colors, because eff the (quilt) po-lice.  I was processing some batik shipment and I saw a bright pink batik next to a Joel Dewberry stripe that's a funky grey-blue-green, and I loved it. So several fat quarters and some stash diving later...

 ...I was on my way to getting my blocks cut.  Y'all can keep your EQ and your iPhone apps...I'll keep my crayons and (usually, but not this time) graph paper.  I tweaked the coloring and distribution enough that I needed to redo the cutting instructions, so that's why there's this. 

So then I started cutting and I was feeling pretty good about the color combos.  Right now all of the churn dashes are cut, and all but 10 of the shoo flies are cut.

I promise my ironing board cover was clean once upon a time. 

I haven't been this amped about a quilt in a while.  I mean, I have been excited about quilts of course, but I am psyched for this one.  There will be more blocks with the gray-green-bluey-taupe exteriors than the pink-coral exteriors, but I think that's what will keep the eye moving and give it places to rest. 

The top block has the Joel Dewberry stripe I referenced earlier...and the bottom block is definitely more magenta than purple, but that's the price I paid for using the flash I guess.  Three blocks down, 27 to go!