Feather Frenzy 2.0...

Well I'm deep into another feather frenzy with a few very small changes...

First of all, I'm actually using my old (and correctly sized) templates.  Second of all, I made a very slight color correction in my fabric choices.

My original color inspiration

Looking over my few old blocks, I like all the fabrics individually but I was purposely trying to choose fabrics that had multiple colors and larger prints in my purple/magenta/orange color scheme.

These did all fit the bill, but especially in the photos I notice that the orange is really crowding out the pink and making it fade into the background.  Magenta can fade into the background, you wonder?  Apparently so!  I think I read the other day that this effect is called vibration - lots of really interesting color posts in the blogosphere lately by the way!

To try and correct this effect without being too drastic, I went back into my stash to pull out an extra bluish purple and a few monochromatic magentas.  When you add those into the mix...

New blocks on the left and old blocks on the right

Its subtle, but I definitely feel a little less orange and a little more balance!  What do you think?  I'm hoping that over an entire quilt top, it will have just the right mix of all three colors.  I'm also planning on making one or two mostly purple feathers just for some extra interest.

Lastly, in Rachel's ScrapBeeLicious request, she linked to this post at Olivia Jane Handcrafted that had some great suggestions on how to greatly reduce the amount of fabric waste that the original feather pattern created.  The Anna Maria Horner pattern asks you to create strips that are the entire width of the fabric.  This creates huge triangles of wasted fabric at each end and also doesn't give you nearly as much variety in your feathers.  Meredith's tutorial first uses strips that are 22" long - or about half your width of fabric - and then staggers them down the 45 degree angle.  Here's the difference:

Waste from original blocks on the right and from Olivia Jane Handcrafted's tutorial on the left

A lot less waste and much more feather variety! Who knows - I might be close to having a quilt top soon and this project might not make a repeat retreat appearance after all!