Searching for Shadows

As previously posted, I finished making all 12 squares for my quilt guild's Half Square Triangle sampler.  Here, I'll refresh your memory:

The pattern calls for sashing with cornerstones like this:

But, being the rogue quilter that I seem to have become, I wanted to try something different.  I wanted  to make the blocks stand out by creating an illusion of a shadow behind them.  Here is what I had in mind, from my Electric Quilt software:

To create the shadows, you start with two strip sets, each a combination of sashing fabric and shadow fabric:

Then you slice the fabric into individual strips:

For each sampler block I needed to sew one shadow/sashing to the bottom of the block

and then add the second shadow/sashing strip to the adjacent side:

So off I went, adding shadows to all 12 blocks:

I liked the effect, but thought that maybe the shadows were going to be too big for the blocks.  So, they each got a quarter inch trim and I tried again:

In retrospect, I probably should have gone with the first option, because after sewing the blocks together, I ended up with this:

Admittedly, it makes for a nice way to showcase the blocks, but I think the shadow effect got a little lost. Next time I will have faith and stick to the original plan. 😕

Anyhow, I'm still happy with the way it turned out, and I will be adding an additional outer border of a turquoise/lime green batik to bring out the turquoise in the blocks.