Guild block challenge

The HHQG (Halton Hills Quilters' Guild) brown bag block challenge started June/2025 at our AGM.  All the participants were to bring a non-descript brown back with some of your favorite fabrics in it.  By the end of the evening, every participant left with someone else's brown bag.  The challenge is that you open the bag, see the fabric, and you have to make an 18 1/2" block.  That is it!  There were not many rules given, other than to make a block and not finish it into anything.

I already had a block in mind for this challenge, and I was hoping there would be suitable fabric to make it.  I saw this quilt block on Fat Quarter Shop YouTube channel.  The pattern required seven different fabrics.  I received a small fat quarter bundle that contained five.  Hhmmmm....

I have to say, that this fabric was a challenge for me.  There was a focus fabric, the green with mushrooms and bugs on it, the peach with small white flowers,  a multi coloured plaid that is in the centre of the block, the large peach plaid and the very loud and bossy background fabric.

Firstly, you have to remember that this is someone's favourite fabric, so they expect it to be used.  My challenge was that I didn't have a simple background fabric.  So, I went outside of my comfort zone and used the loud and bossy fabric, as I couldn't use any of the plaid in it's place, due to all the angles and the peach and green were needed as highlight "star" colours.  In the end, to pull it all together, I added the chartreuse colour for the centre start and the white with green loop design for the corners inside the star.

I hope the recipient likes it.... I am not used to busy backgrounds, but I had to use what I got.  Though there was one thing that really bothered me and I had to do something about it.  Even though the background is loud, I still fell it needs to recede and let the focus fabric stand out.  The problem or should I say my problem, was the outer star was lost, specifically at the bottom.  There was too much dark green blobs of colour up against the green point.

I lived with it for about a month, when I decided I had to change it.  Luckily there was still some of the background fabric left.  So I unsewed the two corners and replaced them with a lighter section of the background fabric.  Now I think it looks much better!!  

Can you tell how much of a difference it makes?  I think this is primarily why we usually go with low volume fabrics for the background, or at least something with less pattern/design.  The block is all pressed and ready to be presented, to the recipient, at the September's back in person meeting.  Now that the block has been presented to the recipient, on Monday, I can now post about it.

Take care everyone.