Scrappy Trip Around the World and a Note About Value

Well here she is, my scrappy trip around the world.  I know you guys already made them way back at the beginning of the year.  Yep, I'm that slow getting to projects I want to make!  But this one is different - really.

I started out making it just like the pattern says, but when I got my strips sewn and cut I got a crazy idea.  Why not make it really scrappy and spread out those strips of 5 so it would be even more scrappy?  Great idea if I had remembered what I learned this year about value.

What is value you might ask?  Value refers to how light or dark a color is in relation to surrounding colors. Value helps us decide how to layout a quilt to make the fabric either blend or contrast. This quilt needed a dark value for contrast as the running diagonals.  I thought the turquoise fabric would be contrasting enough to stand out, but I was wrong.  I should have used a navy. 

Since it was too late to start over, I was hoping to bring out the diagonal with some quilting. The turquoise is quilted with a terry twist and the centers with the straight line diamonds. It doesn't help as much as I had hoped for, but it is better.

So let this be a lesson to me!  Always think about value when picking fabrics for a quilt.  Even when you are making a rainbow quilt from scraps.