Black and White Challenge

Tuesday our Internet,TV and phone service was out due to Sandy. We did have power so we didn't have much to complain about but we didn't really know what was going on in the world. We were able to get in touch with our family thanks to cell phones so after  ascertaining that everyone was OK we relaxed a little. We went out for breakfast but every place we went was either closed without power or they were crowded and short of help so we had breakfast at home.
I wanted to go to the quilt shop to pick up some black and white fabric but I had to wait until Thursday because they were closed because of no power. I finally got to the shop and bought some fabric to fill in the gaps in my black and white fabrics. This is the full range of fabrics I have decided to use. I sorted them by value just by habit. It is interesting to me that the black fabric with a little bit of red and some tiny gray dots doesn't fit in well in the value range no matter where I place it. No matter, this will not be a color wash design. I won't be using all of these but  I will choose from this group.

At the right is a close up of the dark values. I looked for fabrics that were different in the shapes of the pattern and slightly different in density but not too different in scale.

Below is closer shot of the light values and the red. these will be used for the background fabrics. the darker fabrics in this group may or may not work. Before I went shopping for fabric I scanned all  the ones from my stash that I thought I would  use and those worked  out well in the EQ version. I have not scanned what I brought home yesterday and I don't think I will. I have a basic idea of what I intend to do now but I know that from here on my decisions have to be made up on the design wall.

I had a hard time deciding what size I wanted to cut my triangles. I wanted them large enough so I can cut from strip sets if I want to without having them too big. In the end I just cut some 4 inch triangles from the fabric I intend to use for one of the backgrounds and I am going to go with that size. I  am happy to see that the background fabric doesn't appear that it will look all chopped up when triangles of  the same fabric are sewn together . This is as far as I have gone today, so far. I am going to cut a few more fabrics before I decide on which of the EQ designs I will go with.

I thought that I would never come up with an idea for this challenge because of the rule that it had to come from a book or tool that we had for a while but never used. My mind kept going back to things I had already done. After seeing what the other Basement Divas were doing, I got out of that rut. It really pays to hang out with other quilters.