That was my thought too. i tried one piece of very mottled light green at first . I thought a more solid color would work too. Cream or white too but it didn’t. It was too stark.

i do now wish I had made the patchwork background with much smaller squares.

thanks for the feedback

I really like the way you did the background, the scrappy and the ombre look are great!. I would go with the small aqua border, as it will pull the peacock colors in very well. I think what is throwing my eye "off" is the proportions. the large pieces in the background patchwork make the peacock look relatively small. same with outer boom blocks, they are large-ish patchwork. I know that is not fixable, but that's the best I can define as why it may look off.

You could do the background in squares like now, just use squares of shades of cream and white especially in white-on-white designs would be very pretty.

mjpEncintas - gosh how lovely!! Looking at the total quilt I think an extra border isn't critical and not likely to show up well. I love the royal blue surrounding the field of orange and your peacock. Your peacock is exquisite. What a tail! Looking at the close ups, the feathered aqua seems to contrast the most with the orange (to me) if you have your heart set on an inner border. And if you don't like all the empty space, you can consider adding a nest of eggs for him to watch over :-)

Great job on this layout for the Boom blocks, too! I love how the peacock is walking away from the viewer leaving his majestic tail in the foreground to enchant us.

I am not particularly artistic but I love this quilt!

I like the orange patchwork background but think the peacock needs a branch to stand on (do peacocks even fly onto branches, showing my lack of knowledge) or maybe grass and leafy plants to stand in. Also you mentioned making the background narrower and that would balance out the size to background somewhat. You have gotten lots of ideas to think about and whatever you decide, it is going to be beautiful. Great Work!

I also think the peacock needs to be "on" something - grass, branch, perch, whatever.

As his legs are almost invisible, he looks sort of Incomplete to me.

I also agree about that very reddish orange patch at the top. It is distracting to me.

I also think that the dark/royal blue borders/sashings are adequate.

100% agree with cashs mom! That background is too busy. You want the peacock to be the star. I'd even go with a soft yellow tone on tone.

I tried the light backgrounds. Even had the peacock sewn on one and it looked really blah. That’s when I tried this background. Everyone who has seen both agreed, One thing I wish I had done was make the background squares smaller and not in regular rows. This would’ve made it more complex. I may slice it up and try to get more of that effect.

My husband wants a stick background too or for me to at least quilt green leaves around it. Not sure about that. To put the stick on mow might be difficult, I guess I could fix make darker legs and add a stick.

That's going to be a show-stopper! Please post after it's quilted because I can hardly wait to see what you do.

Have you thought about doing some applique work here and there? And/or some embroidery?