Diamonds in the sky....a lesson on color value....

     I love doing mystery quilts....if I count up how many I have done over the years, it is at least a dozen! 
      Last weekend, I participated in the Dec. Mystery celebrating the 3rd Anniversay of the Quilt and Needle.com   Jess Smith has once again found an interesting way to keep us in suspense while building components for a quilt in 3 size options.  The pattern will soon be available on Jess' website store. Way to go Jess!   I have been a pattern tester for Jess on some of her mysteries... she asks a few people to pre-stitch the week prior to the actual weekend, to help troubleshoot any difficulties.
      During the actual mystery weekend,  participants pay for the pattern, and she sends it to us via email in installments during the mystery.  Pictures get posted, and we all share ideas and thoughts on color choices,  stitching techniques etc.  on a forum thread just for that purpose. 
     I try to use as much of my stash as possible on mystery quilts....

     I had a 5+ yard piece of 57" wide autumn leaves in my stash that has been raising it's hand to ge used in a quilt.... I thought I could make it work...... it was going to be close. ... here are my fabric choices before I started cutting.... (The cutting chart called for 7 yards of 40"... I did the calculations.... should work....

        I had a tiny pile of the leaf fabric left after cutting.... (I'm making the 100 x 100 size).  I'll have to add an additional border for our king size bed with deep 14" mattress).  Yeah!  I cut all the pieces!  

        Instructions for the first trial step arrive, and before I even started stitching, we found a cutting error.... I needed 4 more of a component.... and guess what... it was my focal fabric!   EEK!!!  Now this doesn't normally throw me too far, (I mean afterall, my name is scraphappydenise)  But being a mystery, how do I go about it?  Jess told me I could substitute by adding a 5th color... she even went into her EQ and did a color change in the area we were talking about....ooh, it opened up a new design option, and she is excited to see what a 5th color will add, so I chose a cream that was similar to the background in the focal fabric, and off I go... happily sewing along.... 

       When we got to the part of laying the pieces out for the center medallion.... this is what I got..... I love the overall look, and the way the two golds overlap and play together... I love the little stars that appear around the green squares.... The general color scheme is beautiful.... BUT...I really do not like the cream!  It seems to be sreaming at me.  NOT the feeling I wanted.   Another color would be great!

       I work best sometimes at 11:00 pm,  so with DH snoozing in his chair a few feet away... I went to my scrap bin looking for strips I could lay over the cream to do some testing.... after a dozen or so options, I think I like this one the best.   I found a rust that I have enough of in my stash to fix this...

      The little stars still show at the green squares... The rust highlights the flow around the design.... I think I am going to be happy with the results.  When I chose my replacement fabric I SHOULD have stood back and looked at the overall value of my leaves, not simply chosen the background color..... Lesson learned.....  This beauty is now on the back burner.... until I'm off work for the holidays.... I have enough of my two gold fabrics and the green to recut those 16 squares.... It will be easier than unstitching and replacing... there is bias in those blocks... and they laid nice and flat the first time, but I don't want to give them a reason to fight me later.... I'll simply use the original blocks in a charity quilt in the future. 
     I had originally intended to show you some of the previous mysteries I have done, but this post is long enough, so another time....