A fortnight ago I treated myself to a little stash building, and my fabrics arrived last weekend!
See the fabric spread out on the table? It's a pretty floral from Pat Bravo for Art Gallery Fabrics. The cream multi spot & teal branch fabrics are also part of that range, {yep, that's all I bought!}. Together they inspired my colour scheme for my next quilt of yellows/oranges/pinks/watermelom green. I love a scrappy look, that random use of bits & pieces is resourceful & patchworky, and I do also find using fabrics from my stash very satisfying. Having said that thou', now & then adding one or three newer fabrics helps breath a bit of fresh life into my collected treasure!
And my quilt idea? I spotted this 'Spanish Chains' quilt here @
http://riddleandwhimsy.wordpress.com/project-type/2014/ it appears to be made from one designer range and the same neutral background fabric thru'out. Not wanting to make a complete look-a-like version, and this is the main reason, I also didn't have enough of any one fabric for the background, I decided to go with my usual scrappy. I did some simple maths & made up a few test blocks...
After making a few more blocks, I did find that the overall pattern seemed quite lost. The usual format of the 9patch, 5 squares light & 4 dark (or vice versa) wasn't working here! All my neutral creams and black & white fabrics for the 4patch blocks, while certainly pretty enough individually, were proving to be problematical! Because once put together with the 9patch blocks, the "chain" effect was a bit of a non event! You can see that it's really hard to follow the pattern clearly in this pic below...
... so I changed a few of the 9patch squares, making them more middle-to-dark in value. And I also made my lights really "light" for the next few blocks! Progress pics...
I was going to can the whole idea, you know, just chalk it up to experience!
But I've spent a few hours fiddling around with this now and kinda like it!
The overall pattern is subtle -
but it is there -
from a distance!
Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced
Keep going - I like what you have done so far.
ReplyDeleteI really like it - and I think you can definitely see the pattern.
ReplyDeleteWith the tweaks you made and the consistent colour scheme, you can definitely see the pattern. It was worth persevering! You could maybe highlight the pattern even more depending on how you choose to quilt it :)
ReplyDeleteIt's lovely!
ReplyDeleteIt's very pretty - good that you didn't give up!
ReplyDeleteI love scrappy quilts and this one looks like a lot of fun!
ReplyDeleteI recently went through my scrap bins, ironing them and separating them in to 2 storage drawers.