Awesome Ocean -- color value exercise

August 2017,

I wanted to use the Elizabeth Hartman pattern Awesome Ocean to do another study in color value.  I have sorted my scraps by 7 colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black-gray- white) and multi-colored prints.  The pattern has 8 color ways and I don't want to use grays ... so I plan to make an aqua (blue/green) and xxx to get 8 color ways.  I choose a gray/blue background.

Here is blue color way.  What I would change, the eyes on the turtle blend too much with fabric 6.  The Manatee fabric 2 blends too much into the background.  I may re-do the blues, depending on what I learn with the other colors. 

Sept
In selecting the green scraps for this I used more fabrics then I did with the blue.  I did try to use one fabric in two blocks to pull in a bit of consistency but not sure it is needed.  For instance the dark green in the manatee flippers is the same as the octopus and the light green in the octopus is the same as the puffer fish.  

Sept
I did most of these (reds) at the Walker Creek retreat.  I complete with the sea horse at home.  I did discover I made a mistake with the whale mouth in the green and blue (missed the step to trim down) so fixed that on the previous blocks.  Finding the face of the manatee to be the most error prone for me.  At the retreat everyone thought it was a sea otter.

While at the retreat someone mention they had seen Forest Friends done all in greys for the animals except for the eyes which were red.  Sounds cool.  Maybe I'll try something like that.

Oct
While at Bishop's Ranch retreat I did all of the Awesome Ocean blocks in yellow.

Oct
Did the orange set one weekend.  Also re-did the eyes on the blue turtle as the black did not stand out enough.  Made the eyes dark grey and much better contrast.

Nov
While at Colleen Granger's retreat I got the purple set done.

Nov, Thanksgiving weekend

I don't like the seaweed in the pattern, so I decided to make an applique seaweed (after all this is the year of applique for me).  I made the first one in green and really like it.

Dec, quilting by committee concluded that the 8th color to be a magenta/pink.

Put all the animal blocks to get the major color placement done with my quilting friends.  Still need to make seaweed in the other colors and then to do the small color changes as suggested in the pattern.

Dec 2017, completed the quilt top.  I do like my applique seaweed better!  Also how some of the small fish are facing different directions which was a mistake but I like it!