But those are my GOOD fabrics!

On Sunday I talked about getting excited about my next quilt project…..

EXCEPT…..

I was conflicted about what fabric to use.

I kept thinking about the TWO sets of fabric that I had bought for the now-defunct “Holiday Inn Carpet” quilt…

I wanted to base the quilt on those colors, but was struggling to cut into them.

After all, I had bought them for a special quilt….one that I was excited to make!!

But, times have changed and I realized that holding onto that project idea was keeping me from moving forward to anything else!!

So it was time to use the fabrics for something else!!

BUT I COULDN’T DO IT!!

I finally decided to do a further fabric pull and ended up with a TABLE full of fabrics…..

NOW, I don’t even notice which ones were my “SPECIAL” fabrics, and which just came off of my shelf!!

It’s time to make a start!!!

Stay tuned for what happened next!!

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Ocean Fabric Pull

A few weeks back I wrote about a request from my daughter to make a baby quilt for one of her friends.

In the post, I wrote about buying a pattern that had 400 pieces in it and figuring out a way to simplify the quilt…..REALLY simplify it!!

At the time, I had done a small fabric pull…..

I left that post by saying that I was going to buy some solids to add to this.

Then I added a LOT of other fabrics so the final pull looked like this…..

Okay…..this needs some organization!!

I pulled out my “Value Finder” and got busy…..

If you don’t know, a Value Finder is a filter that takes the color out of the picture and replaces it with red (or green, depending on which filter you use).

Mine is an older version that isn’t available anymore, but you might be interested in this one….

These can be purchased on Amazon….

You can also look at a black-and-white photo of the fabric and get a similar result…..

I started out by pulling all of the dark fabrics and, using the value finder, ordering them by value…..

That complete, I was ready to move on to the medium-valued fabrics. I actually found it easier to pull out the light-colored fabrics, leaving the medium shades.

Man, I love some of these fabrics!!!

Finally, I arranged the light color fabrics…..

In each case, I initially arranged them the way that I thought they should go, and would then look thru the Value Finder to see if I was right.

It was interesting to see which fabrics I placed incorrectly!!

Now that they were sorted, I was able to look at all the fabrics I had picked….

And, here they are with the Value-Finder attached…..

I was pleased with the range in values and colors, but I needed to trim some more before I started.

I decided to pull any fabric that I couldn’t get a 30-inch strip out of. There is no reason to put a seam in if I don’t have to.

I did keep two fabrics that weren’t 30 inches wide. Both were just too great to leave out!

I also needed to pick my Sky Fabrics. I am thinking of five fabrics for the sky, and am looking at the lighter end of my fabrics and obviously focusing on blue ones…..

I know that there are six fabrics here but that blue & yellow just HAS to be part of the mix.

I think that these will do for now.

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Pantone Fabric Pull

Last weekend I posted about the Pantone Color of the Year…..

….followed by lots of different palette ideas on the next day…..

NOW it was time to get into the studio and pull some fabrics!!

The fabrics on the top shelves were easy to see…..

But those on the bottom shelves were impossible to get to…..

…..unless I threw myself into it and just sat on the floor…..

This was much better and LOOK at all of those fun fabrics.

I started out by putting the color on my phone and matching fabrics to it. I was amazed to find all of these…..

Next, I started looking at fabrics where Magenta was an accent color…..

AND THEN I FOUND THIS ONE…..

Isn’t that a gorgeous mix of colors!!!

SO…..what if I made THIS my colorway and started looking for fabrics to match!!

How about this one……

Or this……

And don’t get me started about this one…..

Before long my table looked like this…..

…. a GLORIOUS mass of colors!!

But it was time to refine it a bit!! I started by putting down a whiteboard so that the bright purple cutting mat didn’t distort the colors……

….and I started adding fabrics……

It was going to need a background fabric so I added these creams…..

But when I did that, I sort of lost the “accent fabric”!!

So, it was back to the inspiration fabric…..

SO…..this is where I have left it!!

And I know you are asking…..

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE WITH THIS???

The truthful answer is that I have NO idea!!! I have been thinking about playing with “Half-Square Rectangles”, so something may come from that.

But, even if I don’t make anything, it was still fun playing with fabrics!!

What would you make??

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In this blog, I post stories about creativity, techniques, tools of the trade, and lots more about the wonderful art of quilting. If you are enjoying these posts, please subscribe to be notified of each new blog as it becomes available.