Florabunda top is done! Woohoo!

I was totally in love with making this top!  I love yellow (it's right up there with orange!), and all those fabulous big florals were so fun to look at, and cut up (finally)!  lol

Here's the top.....finished!  Yay!  It's about 76x86......a good size on it's own, no borders.

It's actually darker, more like the 2nd closeup pic.  I think the sunlight from the window was fading it out a bit in the first pic.  I'm just in love with it!  Thanks Bonnie Hunter for showing us the original in an antique shop, and giving us the challenge/nudge to use our big florals.  I'm so glad I did!  This is going on my bed when done!  I thought for a backing, I would use the florals in big sections......they are just beautiful fabrics, and should really be used and shown off.  I like that it will be totally reversible, too.

So, while I was making the florabunda quilt......I decided I needed to do something else for my leaders and enders.  Up until this, I have been sewing together 2" squares of my thrift store shirtings......any two squares together, then those together as a 4 patch.  Not caring if the pieces were light, dark, whatever!  A totally scappy 4 patch......and I had been making these for at least a year, and now have a drawer full of 4 patches.  At least 400!  So during the florabunda quilt, I thought I should make something of these 4 patches.  Here's what I came up with......a little red sashing and a black cornerstone creating a 9 patch block.

I put 7 blocks together while doing the florabunda quilt, and I'm just loving them!  But I need to really think about how these blocks will come together......I tried a few versions of sashings.  Above is just straight black.

This is black with red cornerstones.

 Here I thought I would try something different with the black and red theme.....I think it overpowers the blocks.

Here I put some of the 2 inch shirting squares across a wider sashing.

I just don't know.  I think they all pretty much overpower the blocks.  But as I'm typing this, and looking at this last pic......I'm looking at the blocks on the right with no sashing between them......and I kindof like THAT look.......so maybe I need to do a light shirting as the sashing.  Hmmmmmmm.  What do you think?  I would love your thoughts or suggestions on it.

I'm going to keep making the blocks as leaders/enders.......until I have at least 20!  Then we'll see what happens!

Have a great week!

regan