Conquering the Wonky House Block...

...or, at least, not being defeated by it ;)

missmonnyquilts requested wonky house blocks in bright colors.  I attempted this block about a week and a half ago, perhaps two weeks.  I am not ashamed to admit that it confounded me.  I am not a wonky block person.. I have a hard time winging it and not working according to a pattern.  I persevered, though, and refused to give in to my hang-ups.  The block at right is what I ended up with.

Not too bad, but I felt it could have been better.  A lot better.

So, today, once kiddo was down for his afternoon nap, I sneaked into the sewing room, picked a different batch of fabrics (though the white-on-white fabric is the same for both blocks), and got cracking!

I picked some of the more 'wild' fabrics from my stash.  The roof fabric is a particular favorite of mine.  I've only about a yard left of it, sadly - and I've only used it in things I've sent out to others.  I'll have to use it in something for myself soon.

I'm much happier with the way this second block turned out (at left).  I like the scale of the fabrics in relation to each other, as well as the colors.  Which, by the by, are much brighter than photographed.  I did some lightening up and editing in Picasa, but there's only so much I can do without having Photoshop at my disposal - my primary hard drive developed a bad sector, and in order to have a functioning computer, I had to format the blasted thing.  Thank goodness I had everything important to me backed up on my secondary hard drive as well as my external.

Next up, I'll start on carilea's blocks.  She's specified quilter's choice, but in blues and greens.  After that, I'll do the angel blocks I've volunteered to do.