It's the little details.

 I don't often get to all the posts on CQI but I do check the updates and sometimes a 1/2"  thumbnail of a block immediately catches my eye...  That is what happened with this Autumn II block done by Rita.. It would make a great poster and look good on a calendar.  It has strong graphic qualities which I will touch on but she did some other subtle things I want to point out...

First the block by Cathy K. she began with....The colors are perfectly suited to the autumn theme..  There's a nice contrast of patterns... stripes, prints and textures...  I only see two problems....the long diagonal seam that cuts almost across the entire block and a worrisome little triangle upper left...

Well Rita rose to those little challenges and added a lot of interest elsewhere...

1.  In this area Rita put these bold sunflowers... It is not a color present anywhere else in the block so it jumps right out at you.. Three of them makes a nice impact...  But what is really cool is where she placed them... right over the patch with all the earthy vertical lines... can you see what a nice background that makes for the stems and leaves?

2. Then she added one more sunflower leaning back into the composition... a very nice touch... Notice how the centers of the sunflowers and the brown glass leaves are like stepping stones around the block. 

3.  Right now on CQI there is a lot of interest in creating lace with your needle and here are two examples. Instead of covering the seams on the beige patch Rita used two lacy treatments.  The one on the right actually extends the beige patch and if she extended it even further out it would lighten the whole area.  The one on the left adds texture to the green patch making an embellished but quiet  area.

4.Rita  used one treatment along that diagonal seam and divided it with the turkey and the flower stems.  The seam treatment looks for all the world like a rail fence.  Then there was that worrisome little triangle in the corner...  Remember "divide and conquer"? Well she ran right over it two times and that fixed that.   These little triangles appear a lot and it is nice to have some options...

5. Rita ran the bold orange rick rack clear across just above the curved seam...  It effectively lumps all the little patches into a unit.... there is no rule that says you must do EVERY seam.   And the simple stitching she used on the rick rack was perfect..

This is a block with great simplicity and a very graphic composition.. Not all CQ has to fussy and heavily embellished...

More block modification...

I discussed this block a little when I did it last year. It was Jeanne's block in a "seams only". I had three areas I wanted to change..

1. I wanted the orange patch to appear bigger and make the lavender patch beneath it a little more interesting shape. 

2. The teeny tiny corner patch upper right was just too small so I either had to make it appear larger or disappear.

3. The long narrow patch lower left just had to disappear..

First the orange patch.... I put a purple ribbon on a very wide orange ribbon and stitched it at the very lower edge of the orange patch making the orange patch look larger... By putting it at a slight angle it changed the shape of the lilac patch below it.. You don't have to ALWAYS follow the seam//

I used the same treatment to solve two different problems (#2 & #3)... an extra large bold seam.... 

and it made #2 (tiny triangle) seem larger by again putting it on the very edge of the patch. and #3 (long narrow strip) seem to disappear.

The bold seams are always an excellent way to draw OR focus attention on a block

Modifying a Block

I happened across the work Janet in Colorado did on this little block and I thought she did some clever things that I wanted to point out...

This is a very busy block and most any seam treatment you do on the lower left is going be overpowered by the prints.

Janet chose to solve that by simply covering the area with a lovely lace. Next to it she added a "path" of gimp which echos the curvy lines at the top right. The path soften the pansy patch but still lets a few pansies show... She added a pansy and more pink to the lace... then the soft ferny seam carries the eye right to the exquisite pink and white lacy seam which brings your eye back down and perfectly frames the lovely bird.

All in all the addition of the lace and the lacy seam treatment give the block a very romantic look... Nicely done Janet!!!

There are lots of ways of modifying blocks and I will add them as I run across them. Sometimes just placement of a motif or putting something strong next to something you want to be less important can make a great difference.

Although I greatly prefer what Janet has done, another option would have been to divide and conquer. You could run a wide ribbon (rick rack or braid) clear across the pansy patch and the curvy patch. The curvy patch is cut in two and looses some of it's impact.

By then embellishing the ribbon etc. it will become the strong focal point in that corner replacing the need for additional seam treatment on the busy patches.. There are many times that modifying a block is just exactly what it needs...

Button Dumps

Just after I got home from CT I heard from my friend, Susie W. who sent me the following photo of her Hearts to Sendai block... She had never been too enamored of button clusters and she was doing her very first one to fill the upper right hand corner... Being an artist herself she instinctively knew it wasn't working... It was too much the shape of the SRE on the left and she felt the rose button was just too much..

So she sent me a photo and we had a chat about it.... I told her forget "cluster" and think "trail" and also add contrast in all elements and add beads.... Also I personally loved the rose button and felt it was the button above (see arrow) that needed to go...

Well she reworked it and look at it now..

She did indeed think trail, added beads, lots of contrast and variety... It just "sings."

I just love what she did and now the button trail has a direction and leads the eye right down into the center of the block...becoming a critical part of the design of the whole block....

Here is a picture of the entire block which is spectacular... Susie is a stitcher "extraordinaire". Check out all the lovely motifs and seams... I am willing to bet she uses many more button "trails" in her work now... And Heaven knows we all have lots of buttons.....