15 Minutes Play with Black!

Last year (okay, it was December 30, but I love saying that), Victoria at 15 Minutes Play posted a suggestion to play a bit with black.  

The other night, my husband and kids were sleeping and I was feeling a bit of a creative itch. I had another project that I needed to work on the next day, so the evening seemed perfect for a little 15 minutes of play. 

Here's what I came up with:

 (Measures 11" square)

Here's how I did it:

I pulled out a bunch of black and white prints and created some made fabric (doing this really got me wanting to work on my Shades of Grey quilt...hopefully in February!)

Four "squares" became a wonky four-patch block.

I was tempted to leave it like this--I really didn't want to cover up any of the piecing! But after a few gray, dreary days, I needed to inject some color, and this piece seemed like the place. So I pulled out my new Bigshot and some leftover Eric Carle Hungry Caterpillar prints and started cutting petals.

 I hadn't ever considered the caterpillar fabric in a none-kid capacity before. I really like it. It looks all painterly, and a little like graffiti. 

I tried the traditional layout and it just looked too expected. I tossed petals around a bit and didn't find any layout I loved. So I set it aside.

I came back to it today and decided to try the whole flower, but not centered.

  I used a cool zigzag-type stitch on my machine to applique the petals, which I really liked.

I had planned to do a frayed edge center, but it just got too fluorescent. See?

So I stuck with the pieced black showing through. If I had to do it over again, I would have paid more attention to what fabric combination was sticking through the center hole. What's there is fine, but it would have been fun to pick purposely.

Oh, I forgot. Before I added the petals, I straight line machine quilted the background. Until I sit down and do some made fabric/random piecing, I always forget how much I love the look, especially with straight line quilting to finish it off. I'm seeing an e-reader cover on the horizon made using this technique.

I had known from the beginning that I wanted to use the white/black ticking for the binding. But I thought I needed a little more color, so I added an orange flange. 

I am calling this my graffiti quilt.

I love how this turned out. I had a lot of fun playing with the blacks. I don't normally use a ton of black in my quilting, and certainly never all black, so it was interesting to do it purposefully. I really like how it created a textured background for the brighter  colors, and how the combination was so artsy. 

Sharing today on Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday.