I've also got the Pea Coat for my baby niece laying around here somewhere, but since it's only garder stitch it hasn't been getting a lot of attention either.
With this bit of a slump in my knitting I decided that I would ride the Quilting High that I'd been on since my last quilt was finished. I told you I got my fabric in the mail, right? I was SUPER excited. Mr. Pie even offered to take me to the quilting store to pick out some solid colours so I could start working on the quilt today! We bought some darker fabrics that are kind of semi-solid to go in the background.
I get home with my new bag of goodies and I'm feelin' good. I've graphed out a plan (because I am a Math major after all. hehe) :
A tree! I thought that since the fabrics had a kind of Christmas-y flair that I would do a big tree with a cool background and then some nice good sized borders to make it bigger. This guy would end up about 45" across if I left the square the original 5" size, before borders.
I got out a piece of muslin and started laying fabrics out. I had planned to pin them all down and then hang it on the wall while the work was in progress. Brilliant, right??
I didn't get very far because the fabrics do not blend. At all.
You see, in my youthful enthusiasm I ordered a pack of turn overs (the triangles) from Missouri Quilt Company online because it was their daily special at $1.33 and I liked the fabrics. Then I searched through the rest of their shop to find something to coordinate so that I could do a whole quilt. What I found was a charm pack (squares) that had very similar colours . And yes, the colours go just fine, but it's the style of the prints that just don't coordinate. The turnover pack is very contemporary with some geometry shapes and such that kind of read Christmasy and the charm pack I picked is more traditional with botanicals and such. I adore them both but in trying to lay them out I realized that they just don't GO together.
Then thought Maybe it's just that they're in these big squares and Maybe it wouldn't bother me as much if they were smaller.
Plan #2: more squares with borders and such. I proceeded to try this with a bit of pinning:
Better, but to much the same end. Did you know it's really hard to figure out a way to use triangles and squares together? I was trying ot find a design that would let me use both packs together in the same quilt, but I don't know if that's going to happen. Especially when the triangles are 6" high and the squares are 5". I'm just loathe to waste a bunch of fabric. *sigh* Plus, with this idea, I would need about 3 more charm packs to make a quilt with the right sizes and I've already spent a bunch of money on this stuff.
Now I'm stuck. I've put all the fabric away because I was just getting frustrated. In all things creative I've learned that if you have to force something to "work" then you're probably going about it all wrong. I want a crafty projects to go easily, dang it!! I wonder where my MoJo went? Grrrr....
If you're a quilty type, could you please clue me in to what I'm doing wrong? I mean.. I know now what I've DONE wrong, but how can I fix it? lol
How about cutting all fabrics to the same size triangle, and pairing with the solid you have to make half square triangles? This would break up the pattern clash, and ultimately make a bigger quilt. You could try an hourglass arrangement, a concentric widening triangle or an XO type thing like i've just recently done here: http://needlespinsandbakingtins.blogspot.com/2010/09/half-square-triangle-quilt.html
ReplyDeleteCheck the HST group on flickr for more inspiration...
HTH, Laura
Aww, I am sorry it didn't turn out for you.
ReplyDeleteI like the bottom one, though! Good luck.
I know you said you've already spent a bunch, but maybe the fabric is supposed to be two quilts rather than one.
ReplyDeleteI like the arrangement you have in your last photo, and I think the contrast between the geometrics and the botanicals is pretty cool. You might consider cutting the larger squares into strips and piecing those around the smaller squares or even just fusing smaller squares on to the larger squares. My friend's quilt here: http://eschhousequilts.blogspot.com/2010/09/project-modern.html might give you some ideas.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you could consider saving back some of the triangles, setting your square-in-square blocks on point, and using the triangles to "square out" the quilt - sort of like what the red triangles are doing in this quilt:
http://www.quilterscache.com/images38/charlottesdepression.jpg
I hope this helps.