Saturday, January 26, 2013

A Tale of fabrics

In my last post, I showed a picture of a fantastically fun quilt I made for myself. I needed a great present for my son's thirteth birthday and decided he needed something warm and cuddly for his couch. Solution?? Yup - you guessed it. I am doing him a large lap quilt for his living room. I chose the Bali Brown Sugar ten inch squares. It had wonderful colors in it - beautiful teals to warm browns.

I have just started it but I just wanted to show you all that fabric choice always will change the look and feel of your quilt. Here is a quick picture of the arrangement so far of the squares. I have not even trimmed them yet, so they look a bit ragged but hopefully you will get the feel of what I wish to accomplish with this quilt. 



As you can see - I have a WONDERFUL design wall!! My sewing room has no walls that are floor to ceiling, so I routinely commandeer the bed in the guest room. 

Yes this is the exact same pattern used for the Bright Quilt in my last post. There are a few subtle differences other than the obvious color choices, I made this one from 42 - 10 inch squares where as the bright on was made from 30 - 10 inch squares. This one will be 7 rows 6 columns while the bright one is 6 rows 5 columns. 

In preparing for this quilt, I made 6 piles of seven related fabrics - two piles of light, two piles of medium teal and lighter browns and two piles of the very dark browns, teals and a few blacks. I did add a few additional batik fabrics to make my 42 squares. For the arrangement, I chose to place the lights in the center of the quilt followed on either side the mediums and then the darks. 

The look and feel is so different - but I like them both. I did break down and purchase the jelly roll of the Brown Sugar so that I could add a similar border to the one I used in the Bright Quilt. I will post more when I have the center completed.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

A new year - a new effort

So begins the year 2013. It is a new year and I am off to create lots of wonderful stuff. Lat year - I was remiss in my duties to my blog. I am hoping that this new year brings more effort.

I added several of the quilts that I was able to put together and had pictures of on the Quilt page. Some are completely finished others are in line to be put on the frame. The one I am most excited about was this bright quilt.



It was from a 40 10 inch square package from Tonga Batiks. By the time I got it finished -   I was unable to find any of these fabrics to add to the border. So I found and purchased a Jelly Roll at MQX of 36 hand dyed brights that went from dark to light WOF and sliced that up and placed them at a 45 degree angle sandwiched between a true black. I was very please with the results and now am struggling as to how to quilt it!! Once I figure it out - I will get back to you all with a final picture.

Just a side note - I loved this pattern SO much - I am doing another with a 10 inch Brown Sugar package from Bali. The colors are much more muted (teals to browns) but I hope it will be as striking as this one.

Happy Quilting from Snowy Moosehaven.