Tradition With A Twist

My most recent row swap row is called "tradition with a twist".  The idea is to make traditional blocks using brightly colored fabrics.  My row is the row on the bottom.  It is a Greek Cross block. 

My first attempt was this Day and Night block, which would have been very striking in green and solid black.  But, because the focus fabric (the black multicolored fabric) has so many colors in it, the pattern gets a little lost.  Eleanor Burns specifically warns against using a multicolor as the night fabric, but I wasn't thinking about that when I tried it. 

When that didn't work, I decided to go with a little simpler block instead.  I'm happy with how my finished row turned out.  We only have one more month left in the swap.  I'm really interested in seeing how all the quilts turn out.