Monday, April 06, 2009

The Ideas & the Fabrics

Many thanks for those ideas that have been submitted for the quilt I want to make for my son. Keep them coming. I won't cut fabric yet as I am still very much undecided. I thought I'd share a few of the designs rambling through my head thus far.

Let me share the fabrics and then some of the pattern ideas. Maybe seeing the materials will help those of you giving me suggestions.

This was my "feature fabric". I have only 1 yard of it, but love the color gradations and graphic-ness of it. It was the piece that all other fabrics were selected to coordinate with. My biggest problem is that I don't really know how to incorporate it, and it's only enough for about a 4" border around the entire quilt.
I have half yard pieces of these 8 Kona solids, as well as the 2 aboriginal dots in 2 red shades on the right end. The colors are washed out - it's a forest green, 2 shades of teal, 2 shades of bright green, royal and turquiose blues, then red.
Here's my brown set of Kaffe Fassets. Except for the two on the upper left, they are only fat quarters.
These are the blue-greens, and are only fat quarters.

And here's the entire pile of madness together. The patch of wedgewood blue needs to get worked on somehow as this is what the curtains in the room are in, and the dust ruffle. I'm not changing those anytime soon. That color coordinates with the KF's well so that does not worry me.
And onto my Madness of Pattern Thoughts...

1. Tesselation - just a random mix of all fabrics (see end of post)
2. something that uses the solids as small stones - randomly placed, the browns randomly mixed around the stars and diamonds, and the blue-greens which I have fewest as the points on the stars.
3. This pattern is called Next-Door Neighbor. I envision the stars from the solids, blue-greens as the centers and the browns randomly as the others.

4. Jacob's ladder. I love this pattern done up, and it does lend itself well to randomness of color and many colors/patterns. I'd probably aim for the stones and diagonals to be the solids, the few blue-greens as the triangles and again, random browns everywhere else.
5. A woven disaster - Oh, pattern I meant to say. I like the idea of doing a pattern like this, but am not sure I want the Kaffe Fasset's cut into such narrow strips. We might lose the effect of their graphic qualities - another of my big stumbling blocks with selecting a pattern.
5. Some kind of triangle-zig-zag pattern. Obviously, this idea was never finished, but you get the idea.
I have also considered a random disappearing 9-patch. It seems kind of boring, and the easy way out, but is easy for lots of fabrics. I also drafted up a card-trick block which is on the short list of ideas too. I prefer to do a geometric and somewhat orderly pattern. My kid is a math genius (chip off the old block you could say), so I think he may get a kick out of that someday. Or maybe he'll just want to kick me. Who knows!?

I love the Bento Box concept, and am currently thinking about how I'd do that.

Now, do you have any more ideas to share???






6 comments:

The Calico Cat said...

something like this:
http://www.quiltersshowandtell.com/2009/04/50th-birthday-quilt.html

Emma said...

I do love that woven design, but I agree about the narrow strips. Actually, I think you're having the same trouble I often have; there are too many fabrics you want to use. I would try paring back about 1/3 of the fabrics. I think you're also facing another quandry of mine - you want both the prints and the piecing to stand out, and sometimes one needs to give way to the other. I hate that!

floribunda said...

I was going to suggest something like the Jacob's ladder or jewel box -- I think they lend themselves to lots of fabrics and they're something your son won't outgrow.

Vicki W said...

I love options 1 and 3 for your fabrics but I really love the woven one. It would be beautiful in hand dyed gradients.

Desiree said...

I vote for the Jacob's ladder blocks OR, personally I would cut everything into 5" charms and make a very scrappy Jewel Box (M'Liss Rae Hawley, Fat Quarter Quilts). They go together very quickly and are very beautiful.

But I love the Jacob's ladder. :-D

angelabe said...

Ciao. Il tuo blog ed i tuoi lavori mi piaciono molto!