Monday 24 January 2011

What to choose?

Today I will choose decongestant... I am under the weather so a rare day off work, there is nothing like being self employed to make you 'well' nearly all the time!  Today I couldn't quite achieve that but I can't stay in bed all day and I need to be upright so a quick blog is my medication- along with the aspirin.
I'm not planning on spitting by the way... Brief thoughts on how I choose fabrics for a new project.  I am going to use the wonky star baby quilt form my quilt-a-long as an example but I do this pretty much everytime I make something and more than one fabric is involved.   I rely on having a picture in my head which sometimes I sketch out but  generally don't- I know this may not be the most helpful start.  Back to sharing.  Pink is going to be the dominant colour in this quilt, set against a background of creamy white- Kona cotton in Snow.  So, I pull out all the pinks in my stash and lay them on a white canvas art board.  
These fabrics are for the triangle points so I am looking for pinks that will contrast with the white solid and the white based square centres of the stars. Immediately you can see that some are wrong- too blue, wrong shade not pink enough, too much white.  I pull them out and look at what's left.  Sometimes I might go back to the reject pile and reconsider, reassess- nothing is set in stone.  In the pile of rejects I can get an idea for a futre project- there is a lot of gentle apricot pinks in here that would look good together.
 
This is what I went for.  Sometimes this process stretches out.  If I am doing log cabin  I keep the inital pile of fabrics out and dip in and resort and cut as I am going along.  A bit messy but works for me!
How do you choose?
sib blog

4 comments:

  1. I am so sorry to hear you're not well, Kerry! I hope you're feeling better soon! But I LOVE these fabrics, all of them! I love pink as you know so these are fabulous! Oh how I wish I could quilt (and would have extra hours in my day!) but for now I just enjoy it here!

    Yours,
    Mia

    P.S. My tactics for choosing (wool, colors) are quite similar to yours: I choose a punch, put them next to each other, take a step back, study, change... Takes time but I love it!

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  2. It takes me forEVER to select fabrics for my projects! I'm such a slowpoke about it - probably because I've never had any real training in color and what works/doesn't work well together. It's fun to read about how others make their choices!

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  3. Will there be a flikr group for this? I am in serious need of inspiration.

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  4. Hope you are feeling better soon, Kerry. Loved to read your post about choosing fabric for a project! (It takes a lot to stop us from thinking about quilts and fabric...)
    ; )

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