Choosing fabric for a project can really be hard.
Im linking up with Jess at Quilty Habit as part of her Sewing With Certainty series.
I tend to buy fabric and decide what to use it for later. I buy what I like. This got me into trouble when I had an abundance of large scale multi-color prints. I try to buy with more diversity now. Medium and small scale prints, tone on tone, and two color too
Recently I started a BOM class doing Kaffe Fassett's Imari plate quilt from his book Quilts of Sweden. Its a medallion quilt and I decided to go very scrappy and use my extensive Denyse Schmidt stash. But how to begin? The idea of a rainbow stuck in my head.
I started by sorting by print size and type. As you can see I spread fabrics all over the floor sorting. I leaned toward a rainbow effect the first week with the center block.
Looking at all the piles of sorted fabric I carefully chose 8 colors for the petals. I paid attention to the numbers of colors in each print and the scale, trying to be somewhat consistent.
I went with the dark gray background to make the other colors really pop. I chose the medium gray leaf print for the center. Many others fussy cut centers but I wanted the petals to be more of the focal point
I was very pleased with my center. The next BOM was a pieced border. My challenge was what fabrics to pick . I needed a center, middle and background fabric. It also had to mesh with the center. I carefully picked two fabrics to go with each color I had chosen for my rainbow. I also picked a coordinating lighter shade to use as the background. 25 different fabrics to acheive that rainbow border. I also had to coordinate inner border.
I was very happy witht the little logcabins for the border. And Look. I think they came out just right.
And here is the carfully assembled border. I cant wait to plan the next one. I know it will be a challenge. Im trying not to repeat fabrics. Im saving the large scale florals for larger borders where I can fussy cut them.
I hope you find inspiration from this project.
keep dreaming...Colleen
she gave paint chip numbers to match up your fabric too.
