Do.Good Stitches: Humilty Group Broken Herringbone

It's time to reveal my first bee quilt!  I'm a little nervous about it because I went out on a limb and tried some new things with the assembly and quilting.  Here we go!

First of all, for the month of May, I asked my bee mates in the Humility group of Do.Good Stitches to make me mostly monochromatic Broken Herringbone blocks.  It was so much fun receiving these little packages throughout the month!  They all turned out so awesome.  Here they are all arranged by color on the living room floor:

I knew that I wanted to try an offset layout with half of the blocks on one side of the quilt and half on the other.  After lots of deliberation, I decided to sort the blocks into warm and cool colors.
Here is the warm side:

And here is the cool side:

What do you think?  I wanted something with lots of negative space and offset blocks.  I also thought this might be a genius way to try quilting "echo blocks" in the negative space.  Basically, I quilted the warm colored blocks (which created the echo look on the cool colored side), then flipped the quilt around and did the same for the other side.  This quilt is totally reversible, I love it. 

Sandra (at least, I think it was Sandra - correct me if I'm wrong please!!), a member of our group, ordered some Do.Good Stitches labels from Spoonflower (I think?) and sent me a couple.  Thanks Sandra!  Since this quilt doesn't really have a back, I stuck it in the top right corner next to the greens. 

For the quilting, I chose five different skinny filler patterns and quilted them in the skinny sashing of each block.  My original plan was to stitch in the ditch for ALL of those little sashings, but after outlining each block I decided I really wasn't excited about the idea of all that shifting and turning, so I went with FMQ instead.  And then I decided it wasn't worth it to add more quilting once those were done. 
Also, after much debate I chose to use this silver/gray thread because I wanted something that would blend in with the white but still be seen on the gray.  In hindsight, I think I should have used a slightly darker gray for a more subtle look in the negative space. 
What do you think?  Does it need more quilting?  More straight lines?  Different thread color?

This photo turned out a little bit blue - the real quilt is more gray.

I wanted a nice gray for my background, so I ordered a whole bunch and was half way through assembling my quilt tops when I realized I had grossly miscalculated the amount I needed!  GAH!  Since I was too impatient to wait for more to arrive, I went to Joanns and picked up the closest match I could find for one of the sides.  They aren't exactly the same, but it's really hard to tell most of the time.  

For binding, I kept things super simple for myself and just folded the "back" over onto the front and machine stitched it down. 

Now, I really want to know what you guys think about this quilt!  I took some risks and tried an idea that has been floating around in my head.  I wanted something really modern and I think I found it.  However, most of the people I have showed it to so far - mostly family members - don't really like it at all.  Which is fine.  This quilt is for charity - not for any of my family members, so it doesn't really matter if they like it or not.  I like it, and I'm not offended at all if others don't like it.  But that doesn't mean I'm not curious.  What do YOU think?  Love it?  Hate it?  Do you wish I had put all the blocks on the front?  Done different quilting?  Used a different background color?  I'd love to know!
Truth Tea is welcome here!  ;)

And just for fun, a few more shots.  Thanks for humoring me!

I took these two shots in my backyard, and they look kind of cool with the sunlight shining through in spots.

And one shot of it post basting (LOVING spray baste lately), pre quilting.

Quilt stats:

Started: May 2014

Finished: July 11, 2014

Pieced by:  Members of the Humility Circle of Do.Good Stitches

Quilted by me

Finished size: 72" x 62"

Recipient:  Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota

Binding:  Backing folded to front and stitched by machine

This is finish #14 in this quarter's Finish-Along.  (Original list can be found HERE.)

Also linking up with Kelly at Needle and Thread Thursday:



And Alyce at Sew Cute Tuesday:


And Randi at Show and Tell Tuesday:


And Lindsey at Fabric Frenzy Friday: