design 101

Lots of fun in the sewing room this weekend. I've been working on this quilt - it's my version of 'Vintage Spin' from Kathy Doughty's book 'Adding Layers' following her inspiring Modern Wedge workshop a couple of weekends ago.

Over the years I've enjoyed collecting fabric and making quilts, scrappy quilts being my all-time favourites. And you know, this quilt was supposed to be 'just another scrappy quilt'  and like Megan here I just grabbed lots of fabrics, turned up at the workshop, and hoped for the best!
But it didn't all just come together and just magically work out quite so easily! Actually last week, my 'vintage spin' quilt was starting to look pretty chaotic at one point! And I really wondered if I'd ever get there!

I continued piecing the wedge blocks, creating delightful pairings of vintage-y pretty colour, and I got so close to the finish line... but then to top it all off, look...

... yep, spot the odd man out - sigh- back to the design wall bed!

I've been sewing for a few years now, but I must admit some things still don't come easily to me. This little number has been a bit of a design challenge, trying to get these blocks to all play nicely together! I wanted some sense of overall colour balance, so it was back to shopping my stash for other suitable fabrics, making up a few more blocks, reshuffling a few blocks around, and a few more photo shots - which really did help get a sense of how things worked together, or not!

While I've used quite a scrappy mix of colours, prints & textures, I did as Kathy suggested, and tried to get a subtle colour connection in each of my pairs of fabrics for the individual blocks. And there are three touches of very light value in these wedges now, which I think hope helps calm the chaos! I've strategically placed them to form a triangle, leading the eye around the quilt - a trick I've used on a few quilts before. Most of the blocks have a little black in them, so I used that as my cue and opted for the Spotlight black & white pin-dot for my centres & binding.

Joining it all up really was the easiest part, the seams lined up beautifully! And occasionally where there was a little hiccough, the whole block is quite stretchy so it wasn't a problem.

So if you are thinking about making something similar, I hope my photos and thoughts inspire & help a little. And yes, this quilt top has quite a few of my favourite fabrics in it now... don't think I'll be able to part with this when it's all finally finished!

Linking up for the 1st time with quilty inspiration here
and 'oh scrap' here