Anatomy of a Lost Ships Quilt, Part 2: Over the Rainbow

New to this series? Go to Part 1 here.

When the focus fabric for a quilt is dull, there's a grave danger that the whole quilt will be D-U-L-L. Now, despite my peculiar penchant for brown florals, I really don't go for dull quilts so much.  
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​If you look closely, there's actually quite a bit of color in that brown floral.  It appears in small quantities and subtle shades, but it's there: yellow, blue, green, pink, red.  I raided my stash to find those colors.  

There were a good assortment of greens, some decent blues, but only two yellows. The reds and pinks included lots of the itsy ditsy florals that were my very first stash acquisitions. Overall they had the same effect as the focus fabric. This quilt was definitely still in the danger zone.

Color aside, what this fabric has going for it is:

• lots of value contrast; 
  
• a fairly big, bold pattern.  
  

And that's exactly what was needed in the quilt block.  The Lost Ships block was perfect.

Coming up:  Assembling the Fleet