Working with High Contrast Fabrics

I fell in love with the red fabric with yellow dots in the middle of this block.  It is a very high contrast fabric. The yellow is very pale and the red is pretty dark.  When deciding what other fabrics to put with it, I knew I was going to have to go beyond the two colors in this fabric. I went with a darker shade of yellow that had light orange dots and a red a shade darker.  The orange dot seemed to go well with the dots on the dark yellow fabric too.  Then I had to pick out a fabric for the large dot.  It was a challenge.  I tried reds, yellows, oranges, but nothing seemed to work.  So I finally decided that dark pink was a shade darker than the two reds I'd already used.  I didn't expect it to work, but it did.  I really think that a dark dot is necessary for this block to help tie it all together.

The outer yellow petals are blanket-stitched in Glide by Fil-Tec Threads.  The inner red petals are stitched in an Aurifil Polyester 40 weight thread.  I have searched for more of this, but they no longer make it.  The very pale yellow fabric is stitched in Mettler 60/2 cotton thread.  Since this Mettler thread is cotton it has no sheen and really blends into the background.  Using this thread is a nice way to make part of the block soft and flat in sheen.  The dotted red and yellow fabric is blanket-stitched in Deco-Bob by Wonderfil Threads, a nice polyester thread.  It doesn't have quite the same amount of shine as the Glide, but it's close.  The large dot is stitched in Sulky Rayon 40 weight thread.  The little dot is stitched in Isacord machine embroidery thread.

Some things I have learned so far:

1. Cotton thread really has no sheen and is excellent if there is a piece you don't want to stand out.
2. Bottom Line Thread has a little sheen, but because it's 60 weight leaves a very thin line.
3. Glide, Isacord, Deco-Bob, and Sulky 40 weight threads all sew beautifully and have similar amounts of sheen.
4. Fufu thread is really shiny and way easier to sew with than metallic thread.

Suzy