an old favourite with a bit of a twist {a WiP}

Some days just call for some fabric play, yes? 

I'm always on the lookout for ways to use up my scrappy stash, and for a while now I've been contemplating trying out Sujata's quilt 'Organised Chaos' {see here}. It's a special twist on the old Kaleidoscope pattern. As usual, I didn't have an actual pattern, but I based my measurements on Ann's quilt, see her directions here. And luckily I already had the special ruler, which made it all very easy.

I wanted to make a quilt featuring Kathy Doughty's  fabrics released last year, Wandering Mind - a collection with uniquely different and modern designs. Not being a big fan of all-one-designer quilts, the challenge I set myself was to use the large bird print as my focus fabric and to combine my fat quarter designer bundle with assorted scrappy fabrics from my stash.

After looking at a few versions of the quilt online - this quilt here and this quilt here - I decided I needed to work within a few boundaries. 'Sewing scrappy' can sometimes end up sewing chaotic, so I selected a fairly restricted colour palette. I found by trial & error {and quite a bit of unpicking!} that value played a big part here, and that I also needed to add a few geometrics, spots and solids to help calm the chaos!

Here's a few progress pics...

- fingers crossed this will actually work!

-and look, making little flowers on some of the corners

{thanx Ann, Lee Ann & Sujata for all these extra ideas!}

- and then adding a few more of those corner triangles really got this quilt top spinning! 

It's a very clever variation, I love it!

And with so much to keep me focused, I'm just going to keep on playing with this for a bit longer!

Linking up this week with WiP  here at freshlypieced

- pop on over to see what everyone else has been busy sewing.