How mini is mini?

A couple weeks ago, Victoria posted a Miniature Challenge over at 15 Minutes Play. I knew I wanted to be part of it, but couldn't quite decide how--what kind of block/design? What colors? I'm always more excited about a project when I've got an idea in mind.

Then I saw this pattern:

Cubit from Stitched Together Studios

and I knew exactly what I was going to do! 

The quilt pattern measures 69-1/2" square, so I had to do a little math to shrink the design down to the 12" challenge size. I decided to make just the center four blocks. 

Our weather has been a bit gray and dreary lately, so I gravitated toward bright oranges and yellows for my made fabric. Incidentally, these were the colors of our leaves last week...after the rain (and snow flurries!); they're mostly brown now.

I wasn't sure what colors I wanted to use for the sides of the focal squares, so I auditioned multiple options. It seemed like the obvious answer was to go with some type of grays/blacks, so I tried several of those, experimenting to see if patterned prints would work or take away from the made fabric focal squares. I also threw in a couple colored versions to see how they'd look. The orange/yellow squares measure 3-1/2"; the finished block will measure 12" square.

I was glad I auditioned so many different choices, and while I liked my first choice (upper left--gray solid and darker gray scroll) best, I was surprised at some of the others that I liked as well--especially the pink and purple; it just wasn't the look I was going for with this project.

I played around a bit more in Photoshop to see how the different blocks would look (I realize in real life the blocks would be mirror images...these are just quick mock-ups where I copied, pasted and rotated one block three more times.)

Subtly solid:

Brights; less of an optical illusion:

More traditional fabrics:

Darker shaded tonals:

Medium grays:

Dots in different sizes:

Which do you like best?

p.s. If you like the Cubit pattern too, you can find it here.