The Road to Washington Block is the May block in the Washington Whirlwind Block of the Month on the Civil War Quilts website. The photo above is the block I have decided to put into my quilt. Many of the blocks I’ve already made are orange but I have one red and blue block and needed to make some more.

I pulled out a selection of 30’s Reproduction fabrics that I thought looked great together and made this block. Here is the block I made with the first set of fabrics.

It’s okay but I find it to be a bit jarring. So I went back to the stash and swapped out a 3 of the fabrics for new ones. Then I laid out 2 variations of the new block, to see which I liked better.

I initially planned to keep the red fabric adjacent to the chaining blocks. But it was still a bit jarring. So I went with the red facing toward the two large corner squares. I think it has better balance and will be a much better fit with my quilt.

It was fun to play with the colors. And I was reminded that when it’s not clear which color might work, it’s always worth thinking about green!