Stripping Away

I meant that as in "plugging away" at something.  But I guess it could mean removing unnecessary layers too, couldn't it??  Here are some photos of strips that I made earlier this week.

That lime/chartreuse would take over if I put it into the piece, wouldn't it?

 I'm going to try to confine this project to a "ribbon" quilt so as not to get to deep into thinking and calculating and arranging.  But I see so many possibilities it's hard not to digress down a dozen different paths.  I need to work on not trying to be too "matchy matchy" both in color palettes and in geometry.  The A-B-A of the previous neutral strips was not working because it looked like it was trying to be precise on something that was not cut or planned to be precise.  I think by moving the left strip up I still get the figure/ground I was looking for, but with more randomness.  I need to think more about value - this is looking too dark, and the light pieces get lost.

I wonder if this "unit" of three wide strips is going to be too heavy handed? Will it force me into making more big "matchy" units to compensate?  But I don't WANT to give up this figure.  We'll see.  The green/black/green is going though.  I'm going to cut it into strips and piece it back together vertically.
This and maybe one more piece will use the majority of the made fabric from the workshop, so it's time to make more.   I've given myself permission to spend around $200 on Kona solids - that will buy me 30 yards, yowza!  Pink Chalk Fabrics, look out!  Plus I have a $100 GC from my Rotary buddies at Fourth Corner.  I don't know yet what I'll buy there, they don't have a huge selection of solids.  I need to make bags for my gift exchange friends, maybe I'll get some fun modern prints for those.  4C is doing a tote bag workshop to help people cope with the plastic bag ban that goes into effect in Bellingham on August 1.  Maybe I'll do that, too.  
I'm also thinking it might be time to cut into some of the beautiful hand dyed pieces I have bought before they become too precious.  I saw these spectacular pieces by Heide Stoll-Weber (on line) yesterday.  So simple, and so, so very beautiful.  Must learn to dye!
Oh, and as a snarky little aside... Why would someone (not Heide, another blog I stumbled onto) put a "follow me on Pinterest" button on their blog when they only have three pins??  Have I mentioned that I have close to 9,000 pins, and over 1,000 followers?  Well, maybe I should be sewing instead of pinning like the above-mentioned person probably is!!