Making these blocks, with all the "extra" colors in the fabrics, makes me realize how we limit ourselves when we choose fabrics that "go" together. This block has a lot of different blues, warm ones and cool ones, and ones that veer to green and some that are duller blues, but here they all coexist wonderfully.
Update...
My friend Megan has left a question in the comments and I'm going to answer it here. Megan, when a fabric has both, say yellow and blue in it (as in your example) I determine which color is dominant and store it in that box. So if I'm looking at the fabric from a distance and it reads "blue" or "yellow" then the decision is easy. I have bins for "WHITE" and I have one for "WHITE AND" which is where I store the fabrics that are colors with a white background. Lots of novelties end up in this bin, I do the same thing with Black. One bin for "BLACK", and one for "BLACK AND." I don't stress out too much about where the bits end up, and if some fabrics fall into two bins, then so be it. These are scraps, after all and some things just aren't worth stressing out about. I do have a "MULTI" bin and one for "CATS." Use whatever works for you.
As for your comment about a lot of quilters using only fabrics from the same "line" in a quilt, I totally agree. I feel those quilts are bland and boring. I always get strange looks when I shop for fabrics, and bring a lot of seemingly unrelated things together. As you know, I'll mix Asians, batiks, Marcia Derse, Kaffes, and Westminster fabrics together with Jinny Beyers, Tula Pink, or whatever else I can lay my hands on. Except for the big big ones, I don't know the names of the hot designers, and that doesn't bother me one bit.
3 comments:
I'm using the same approach with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge "color" of the month . . . all shades and values and hues . . . MUCH more fun.
I love these blocks you are making!
Two comments, Lynne:
1. I've been interested to see some of the fabrics you've pulled from scrap boxes of each colour. In my fabric collection, some of them wouldn't have been stored in the 'yellow' box or the 'blue' box but in the 'multicoloured' box. Since I was drawn to novelty prints and bright colours during the years when I was building my stash, my multi-coloured bins outnumber everything else. I'm mindful that storing these fabrics in this manner probably reduces their usefulness and the likelihood of my actually using them. But ... if a fabric has both blue and yellow in it, I've been loathe to put it in either the blue bin or the yellow bin. I would be interested in understanding how you make such choices.
2. I've been a scrap quilter from my earliest days of quiltmaking - when, of course, I wasn't using scraps but small pieces cut from fabrics bought especially: just lots of 'em! I appreciate that we're all different blah blah blah, but even so, I do find the influx of (mainly) young quiltmakers to the craft who are caught up in buying whole fabric ranges designed by the latest star of the industry rather sad. In my view, quilts made from a single fabric range generally lack visual depth. They seem flat and rather boring to my eye. My quilts are about colour and pattern and it gives me great joy to make a(nother) scrap quilt where a 1992 calico ends up next to a 2010 batik, next to a geometric reproduction print. And there's always the silliness of adding a tiny square of novelty fabric that celebrates the turn of the century or some other event. Given my preferences, I'm enjoying the close-up pics of these blocks that you're making, where so many different styles of fabrics are being used together.
Megan
Sydney, Australia
Thanks for adding in your answers to my questions, Lynne. Much appreciated. In your case, you're only talking about storing scraps. At my end, however, the issue is about storing the (very large) stash more generally. The drawers given over to 'multicoloureds' are almost as many as the rest of the stash put together!
Megan
Sydney,Australia
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