I noticed a couple of months ago that my stash does not reflect my personal color preferences. I like all colors except blue. I really dislike blue. Now, of which color do you think I own the most fabric? Blue! How did this happen? I think there are several answers to this, including that the blue selection at the store is much larger than any other color. A lot of my novelty fabrics have blue backgrounds, several people have given me blue fabrics, blue fabrics are most readily available at thrift stores, most people I sew for love blue, and I've just found some great deals on blue fabric. I cut out that split nine patch, and it will be half blue, which helps bust some blues. When the mystery was announced, I decided I would bust more blues in it.
To make these quilts easier for me to sew, and not go blue crazy, I added some colors I do like, and for the mystery quilt it is pink. This mystery quilt needs three colors plus a neutral, so four colors total. I picked white for my neutral, meaning white backgrounds, they have other colors in them, but this go around I avoided creams. My last color is gray because it looked good with all of the other colors.
Here is a photo of my fabrics. I have the blues, pinks, and whites already cut into 2 1/2" strips. I haven't cut the gray yet, but since I'm not going scrappy on the gray, I can cut that fairly quickly. I wanted to go scrappy on all of it, but when I looked through my fabrics I had only about 5 different grays, which didn't seem like enough variety to me. I'm on no-buy, so going and buying more grays was a no-no, I need to use what I have. The single gray should help unify the quilt anyway. In Bonnie's color choices she is only using one gold.
I really didn't have much cutting to do for this so far, since I save 2 1/2" strips in my scrap system. I raided my drawers and dug out the colors I had already cut, and only had to cut a few pinks and whites. I had enough blues already cut. My secret sister from one of my online groups sent me some pink fat quarters a while back, and all that is left of them is going into this quilt.
It is a little odd I decided to go for white as my background color. I think overall I prefer cream, and I often mix whites and creams. I think I wanted a crisper look in this quilt, so I went for only whites. Funny, I have some 30's charms, and I will definitely use white for my background color when I make a quilt with those. In my head, 30's fabrics scream for white backgrounds. In most of my quilts I use cream or a mixed background. Sometimes I wonder why even in a scrap quilt, where pretty much anything can go, I still get these little guidelines in my head on what I want for each quilt. I think quilts talk to you in a weird way. Non-quilters probably won't understand that, but it is the same as decorating a house, why do you chose one lamp or one picture over another? One of them just looks right in the space to you, even though someone else may have chosen something different to go in the same spot.
1 comment:
Hi Melodie,
Oh you have decided to do the mystery too! Me too! Not that I need more on my plate but somehow using up some fabrics from stash and not having to think too hard appeals right now (less to move later!)
I am doing the Christmas version which will be nice to replace the one Christmas quilt I've made but that my son claimed years ago for his bed. Only need to buy my gold fabric too, rest from scraps and stash.
Won't we have fun, I love the sound of your blue colourway being a blue lover myself.
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