A different way to audition fabrics for a quilt

I dropped off the Meadowbrook quilt at the longarmer's yesterday and stopped by at my local quilt shop for some green fabric for an applique. (I had every shade of green imaginable in my stash but the one I needed. Typical!)

After I found the green, I wandered through the shop to see what was new. My, they have a great selection! Right in the front was an old park bench stacked with new bolts from Benartex, the Cider Mill Road line. And they had the blue colorway too. I had been looking at these online, and the blue is just the color in my kitchen. I had been very tempted. Well, when confronted in the flesh with my temptation, I gave in. I had no idea what pattern I would be using, so I estimated how much I would need for a wall quilt or lap quilt, and hoped I had guessed correctly.

That evening I started thumbing through my books and magazine files. Nothing was working until I came across a pattern from "The Quilter" May 2005, called Coventry Cottage. It was a simple pattern with the same block done in two color combinations. When it was set together, it looked like three blocks, set on point. How interesting!

But would it work with my fabrics? I could cut out and sew up a few blocks to test it, but I wanted a faster way. I don't have EQ and usually draw and color up test blocks with pencils. But I wanted the patterns in the fabric to show too. What to do?

I jumped out of bed this morning with the solution. I drafted a reduced scale block, cut out small patches of the fabric and glued them to the paper. It worked great. Then I scurried to the scanner, scanned the blocks, and arranged the blocks in the center pattern of the quilt. Now, I could see that it would work just fine. And here is my scanned and reproduced image of the two blocks. See the illusion of blocks set on point? It's really just two blocks, one with yellow borders and one with green. I'm going to enjoy making this quilt. Now, what about the borders? Back to the scanner!