AN EXERCISE IN GRADATION

My favorite part of quilting has to be playing with color and fabric.  That also has to be the hardest and most confusing part for me.

Even after all of these many years of quilting, I still struggle with choosing fabrics for a quilt.  I decided that I needed to study the properties and color of fabrics more in depth.  So, I set out on a small project knowing the danger of OVER-THINKING the whole process.

My self-imposed rules:

l.  I could only use fabrics that I already had in my scrap stash, with the exception of the black fabric needed to hold the whole experiment together. For some reason, I had very little black in the stash.
2.  I planned to choose 26 different fabrics in 7 different color ways being aware of the size of prints and their intensity and brightness.

3.  I could not repeat the fabrics -- that meant 182 different fabrics.  No problem -- I have a supply of scraps going back at least 30 years, all sorted into colors.

What I did:

I took each color way, cut the 26 pieces 1 1/5" X 2 1/5", and put them in some sort of gradation -- from light to dark or dull to bright.  Then, I sewed them together into strips of 26 pieces each; joined them with black sashing; and put a border on it.

What I learned:
1.  I have a hard time working with yellow and gold.  Evidently, I don't, however, have trouble BUYING yellow.  I had a bunch of yellow fat quarters never touched!  Also, just can't do purple easily.
2.  Red is the easiest for me to work with.  I picked the 26 fabrics in 10 minutes from lots of choices.  I didn't get into the pinks -- just gradated the reds from dark to bright and back again.  However, I included some pink in the burgundy strip.

3.   Greens can be tricky -- are they yellow-greens or blue-greens?  Also, blues -- are they red-blues or green-blues?

4.  I probably have more browns, tans, and beiges in my scraps than anything else; but I avoided true browns in this experiment.  Browns seem to be a non-color and expand a color way, not change it.  I did include some gold-browns in the yellow strip, and some red-browns in the rust strip.
5.  It can get boring fast without varying the size of prints.

6.  Yes, I have a tendency to over-think things!

7.  It can be a lot of fun playing with fabric.

If this experiment ever gets through the quilting stage, it will be bound with more of my red scraps.  Enough over-thinking for now!!

P.S.:  Check out my lifestyle blog, (click here), for a few pictures of Colorado Quilting Council's "Quilt-A-Fair" held this past weekend.

I'm joining the following:
Love Laugh Quilt for Monday Making
Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday
Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Be Social Wednesday
Quilting Readers Garden for WIPS Be Gone Friday
Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Can I Get a Whoop Whoop Friday
Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday

MORE BLOCKS FOR 'DEAR JEANNE' QUILT

Four more 5" blocks completed for my 'Dear Jane aka Dear Jeanne' quilt.

Garden Maze

Mother's Kitchen

Places to Go

I have to redo 'Places to Go' -- I goofed up somewhere -- funny right side!!

Quilting Connection

Here are the twelve blocks that I have done so far in a collage.

Hopefully, I can get to the quilt store (50 miles away) soon to check out ideas for sashing fabric.  I'm also thinking about different setting options.

Thirty-seven more blocks to do, plus one remake.  Slow going --- but that's O.K.!

I'm joining the following:
Love Laugh Quilt for Monday Making
Cooking Up Quilts for Main Crush Monday
Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday
Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Bee Social Wednesday
Quilting Readers Garden for WIPS Be Gone Friday
Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It Up Friday

THOUGHTS ON CHOOSING COLORS

I wrote previously about a couple of books by Jinny Beyer on drafting quilting patterns (click here).  Jinny was very instrumental through her books, quilts, and classes in the 1970s revival of quiltmaking.

Here is another one of her books, this one about color published in 1992.  It really goes into detail how she thinks about color and chooses fabrics for her quilts.

Even if you don't subscribe to her methods of shading, a dark color, and an accent color; this book is a visual treat if you love fabric.  All of the pictures really show you how any one color relates to another.
After taking one of her classes in the 1980s, I have used a modified version of choosing fabrics for my own multi-fabric quilts. 

 Below is one of my old work sheets from a quilt I made in 1989. I picked out a couple of fabrics (shown upper left in photo below) to use repeatedly to unify the quilt; then I chose fabrics from my stash to add.  I laid them out in gradation; then squinted my eyes to see if there was something that stood out in a bad way.  I remember I eliminated brighter yellows, and used the brighter red as an accent.

This is the quilt that resulted from that exercise.  It ended up having 96 different fabrics in it.

Starshine, 1989

For the current quilt I am working on, I also pulled fabrics from my stash in a color story I was considering.  I have modified the process even more as I now have more color confidence, but I still like to do the 'shading' thing.  It helps me see what fabrics I might be lacking; and I can take the cards along to shop, if necessary.

I'm anxious to see how this one turns out.  I had a miss-start as I first tried to work purple into the quilt (instead of the red), but I just didn't feel it.  I like it much better now -- maybe it was that I didn't have a lot of purple in my stash because I am not a purple person!  In the end, I usually go with any gut feelings.  
Color is so very personal!

I'm joining the following:
Love Laugh Quilt for Monday Making
Cooking Up Quilts for Main Crush Monday
Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday
Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Bee Social Wednesday
Quilting Readers Garden for WIPS Be Gone Friday
Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Can I Get a Whoop Whoop Friday

DEAR JEANNE UPDATE #2

My Dear Jane (Dear Jeanne) quilt has spoken -- the color story will be red, blue, and white/gray/black.

I finished four more 5" blocks for the quilt.

BREWSTER PATCH

CRAZY FRIENDS

CROSSING PATHS

GOLDEN MOMENTS

Here are the eight blocks I have completed so far in a collage.

Only 41 more to go, but no hurry as I'm trying to make this project last awhile!

I'm joining the following:
Love Laugh Quilt for Monday Making
Cooking Up Quilts for Main Crush Monday
Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday
Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Bee Social Wednesday
Quilting Readers Garden for WIPS Be Gone Friday
Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It Up Friday
Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Can I Get a Whoop Whoop Friday
Quilt Shop Gal for Creative Goodness Party Friday