Popsicle Progress

Here's what 10 hours of progress looks like.  The original bits and pieces were put together in larger sections, and a fair bit of hand applique done (Sarge's hat & eyes, a crazy section b/w the popsicles that was just too weird to try to piece & Beetle's face.  The hat will be too..after some other sections are joined.)  Instead of the detailed tissue templates, I spent much of today tracing shapes directly on the light colored fabrics.

In the negative category, I found that I didn't have enough variation in my blues and yellows as I'd hoped.  The shadow under the popsicle is less defined than I'd planned.  Also, the blues under the celaphane wrapper seem too dark.  I may have to try a bleach experiment to see if I can effectively fade those a bit.  Update:  The bleach removed all of the blue on the batiks and all that remains is the faint design in either tan, brown or purple.  All other colors went away. Sure glad I tried that on scraps.  

On the plus side, the variable width strip pieces of raspberry (some of them pieced w/ multiple colors) worked pretty well for the popsicle.  I'm happy with the colors and it makes the melty splotches believable.  I sorted the rest of the fabrics and still love the combos I picked out for the popsicles.  The upper (half-eaten one) will be a bit more red than the lower left one, and I like the red splotchy fabric even better than the one I used on the bottom. Also, the cartoon sections went faster than expected.  It helps that I quit trying to include all the details and let the batik patterns carry some of the variability.

I have some time Saturday morning to work on this quilt again.  I hope I can get a lot done then and Sunday, as it will have to be packed away for a couple more weeks until I have a chunk of time to work on it again.