QAL: Bottled Rainbows

Well, it's almost time for this QAL to be over. And guess what?! I'm finally getting started! LOL. But It's not my fault. ;) I had ordered the fat quarter pack from Whipstitch Fabrics about a week or two into the QAL (is it QAL? or QA? I've seen it both and I can't decide which I should use. :) oh well. maybe I'll use both.) Anyway, so after about a month I finally received 9 of them (they were waiting for the rest to come in, which I didn't know they didn't have at the time, otherwise I wouldn't have ordered it. probably.) but just ended up sending the ones they did have. Then I didn't hear anything and thought they forgot and I had just lost my money, but after a lot of emails and waiting I found out they were still waiting and had no idea when it would come it. ( I later found out I wasn't the only one with this happening.) Anyway, I decided to just cancel the rest of the order and find my konas somewhere else. It took forever to do that, and finally I noticed that Fabric.com is selling practically ALL of the colors. They were also on sale, and I love that you can always find a coupon = I got the rest of my konas at 1/2 yard for cheaper than I had paid for a fat quarter! SWEET!


Anyway, I was kind of bugged by the situation, but it's understandable so I'm not. I was more bugged by the lack of communication. Anyway, I'm done. And now you all know why it took so long to get started... which I'm sure you were dying to know. lol. :)

HERE'S MY PLAN:

I guess I'm glad it happened like that, because now I get to see everyone's finished products before I begin, and although I absolutely LOVE the blocks, I don't really love them all together. First I considered rearranging them differently - like in just some random color arrangement, but I don't think that would fix it, so I decided that... well, first I decided that instead of all the random scraps I want to do stripes across each block. I think it will look kind of cool! Then I thought of not putting the side boarders on each block and just kind of fading the colors together, but no. Finally I got out my lovely graph paper and started experimenting.

I originally tried different patterns, as well as doing the center colors a different color than the boarder color, but it was a little too chaotic.

Here is what I came up with that I think I like. It might change before I finish completing each block, but I'm going to cut them up in 4ths and then arrange them randomly and piece them back together. Like this:

Looking at the picture now, I can see a ton of different ways it could be arranged. If you look every 4 blocks the boarders meet up in the center - I could do similar colors in each four and kind of do a pinwheel design. Or I could do each row or column in a different color - because each row kind of makes an egyptian line thing. I don't know how else to explain it. Anyway, it will be fun to play around with the blocks when I get to this point. :)

Now to finish my blocks, and find my scraps! :)  I'm crossing my fingers that I have enough scraps in the right colors. I did read that one person found out that you can get "sample" strips from Joann's. They'll cut a 1" strip for free - as long as you don't ask for 50 1" strips. (I just might have to go see if I can get some samples in the colors I need.)

I can't wait! :)