While my testers are working on my new patterns, and the longarm quilter is working on making the two quilt tops look gorgeous, I’m moving on to my next project.  I need to make a class sample for a retreat in the fall.

Today I’m fabric shopping in my stash.  While I support the local quilt shops as best I can, I’m going to try to pull fabrics from my stash for the Carolina Lily quilt.  I’ve been really good about using the fabric I have in the past few years, although that doesn’t stop me from buying something that I fall in love with.  For this project I need four fabrics:  a red, a green, a light background, and a multicolored focal/border fabric.

I decided to start with the multicolored focal/border fabric, because I have a ton of William Morris fabric that’s been hibernating in my stash for a while.  I have these two red prints that I thought would work.

Then I pulled a red and a green that I thought could go with the border.

I’ve learned that just because I like the fabrics doesn’t mean that they’ll play well together.  I always take a picture and convert it to black and white to check out the values.

You can see that the values of the red and green and pretty close, and I want some contrast in the values to make the quilt “pop.”  Let’s try again.

I changed the red to a brighter red, but this red didn’t work either.  I have the higher contrast between the red and the green, but I thought the red was too bright and was fighting with the borders.  Let’s try again.

This green works well with the red, but now neither works with the border fabrics.  Argh!  Start again.

I changed the red, which works a little better, but I’m still not liking the green.

I change out the green to something that works well with the multi/border fabric, but now I’m back to the value problem.  The red and green are the same value.

I change out the red again, take more pictures, but I think the values are still too close.

Aha!  Bingo. I found a red that works with the green and the border, and has a better contrast from the green.  I’m liking it.

I decide on the focal fabric that was on the right, because it has a little of the same green in it.  I take a separate picture just to make sure.

Then I add a beige background fabric and take one last photo.  I think it’s good!

All this probably took me about an hour, digging through my stash, switching fabrics and taking pictures.  A little time now will save me the aggravation of cutting and sewing and not being happy with the final product.

Now on to cutting!

 

Please follow and like us:
Pin Share

Subscribe to the Inspired Stitches Newsletter!

Join our mailing list to receive the latest in quilting inspiration, and receive a free gift!

You have Successfully Subscribed!