Shuffling

Although I have decided I am going down the route of wilder rather than more structured, I find I am still laying my pieces out like this when I start to sew.  They come out of the box in a different order each time but that's okay.  I am aiming to make four long strips before I worry too much about which way round they go together.  

Maybe, once I've got that far, I will need a fifth strip.  I will almost certainly need to add something border-y to to the top and bottom to get to a length I like.  

In the meantime, each piece is having its own little internal conversations.  The one thing I am paying most attention to is how many of the horizontal red plaid strips I use.  As Doris said on my last post that fabric is rather shouting for attention.  So far, I feel that's okay; it helps to stop all the blues and darker tones from mushing too much.  But I don't want it to be the only thing you notice when you look at the completed top.

Every so often, I shuffle everything back together, just to make sure I don't lose sight of where I am going.  This is one iteration. The second vertical row in this next photo has been sewn together.  Apart from that, nothing is finally decided.  Each bauble is stitched to the rows below it, but they don't have final places yet, though I am pretty sure I'll be sewing the left hand row up soon too. 

On a practical note, I am running low on the dark blue plaid and also the batik shirt but overall it still seems like I have a fair amount of fabric.  The last bits may be dictated simply by what's left, but so far, so good.