do.Good Stitches More x and + blocks

What an interesting week we've had!  The eldest went back to school on Tuesday for one day, Wednesday was a national holiday for Anzac Day, and then we had two more days of school.  It was nice to have both boys at school/preschool for these two days.  I finally found some time to make a couple more Japanese x and + blocks.

I love how the new ones came out.  I found the fabric selection process really takes a long time for me.  I put together a bundle and then leave it for a day or two, when I come back to it I usually find something wrong (in this one's case I originally had the red and aqua teamed with purple but the backing fabric I chose wasn't big enough because it was from a 10" layer cake) so then I introduced the grey backing and then the black fabric worked better.  It looks a little bit more masculine but that's OK because I think the others lean a little more feminine (in my opinion anyway).

This one was also a last minute change in fabric.  Originally I had green, yellow and orange fabric bundled together but it wasn't doing it for me.  I really wanted to use purple and I don't have a lot of purple in my stash (lots of lilac though) so I decided to use this Joel Dewberry Heirloom fabric I've been hoarding for no purpose.  The orange and fishy background worked really well with it so the only thing from the original bundle was just the colour orange (not the actual fabrics I had started with).

Here are all my blocks together.  I found scrappy and gender neutral a real challenge since there were so many elements which meant you needed to have quite a lot of fabrics that worked together but also allowed the cross to stand out.  It was easier to limit my colour palette to just three or four colours.  I hope they blend OK with other blocks that are scrappier.  I also prefer the backgrounds that are understated, the multi-spot on the top right is just too busy.  It was a fun and simple block to make though and I will definitely like to make them again.

You can see more of these blocks in the do.Good Stitches Flickr pool.