Fabric Selection Guidance

[JillianD]

Hi All
I'm Jillian, from Brisbane, Australia.
My approach to fabric selection was to use the Fabric Requirements as a guide and source from my stash and our local quilt shops.
So I've ended up here. (See pic)

[JillianD]

Question:

In the kit, some of the backgrounds have dogs. If you cut background squares straight, once the blocks are set on point, the dogs will be sideways. Anyone cutting their squares to alleviate this? Should I even care?

[Barbara B.]

On the sample quilt, I tried to keep the dogs all going the same way in any given block. But, in reality, it won’t make much difference. Since other stitchers were not concerned about the direction, my dogs go all over, it’s still fine.

[Judith A.]

For those who may want to purchase more fabric for their Afternoon Delight, I have found that a 10" square layer cake works well. The 10" square is large enough for both the background squares and the applique.
You get a nice variety of coordinating darks and lights. I am using the lights for backgrounds and the darks for applique.

I prewash all my fabrics. For these 10" squares, I sorted them by color and soaked a batch of similar colors in hot water with Synthrapol and Color Catchers, rinsed them gently, and then dried them in a hot dryer. They shrunk a little in one direction. They ended up a very good size to use for the blocks in this quilt.

Judy