Yesterday I removed the turquoise vertical strip and resembled the quilt top panel – much happier with the flow across the two sets of strips – they’re not interrupted with that contrasting element that really didn’t work well.

Hodgepodge with turquoise vertical stripe removed, sashing and borders added

The colour was right, though, and I used the turquoise fabric to sash the panel – the narrow contrasting sashing provides closure to the panel and brightens it.

The border – that was a challenge – I had several grey fabrics in my stash – I tried all of them. At one point I thought one of the taupier ones would look OK (I used two different Grunge taupe fabrics in the brightly coloured strips) but in the end I used wide strips from the grey Crackle (Moda) I’ve had in the stash for a while (I thought the fabric pattern was long out of stock but I just found more in a wide range of colours online so I bought two yards to replace the piece I’ve used).

Now on to a backing panel with a wide strip of some kind. How I choose to quilt this will also make a difference to how the final quilt will look – quilting design, thread colour should help tie the elements together as well.