I'm making Amy Butler's "Pink Bliss" but using all sorts of different fabrics so goodness knows how it will turn out. I'm trusting that having similar colours will mean it will be ok in the end, but I'm getting quite nervous about how well the various fabrics actually go together. Totally second-guessing myself here! Oh well, too late now, I refuse to start looking for new fabrics. :P The quilt is based around blocks seperated by multiple strips of fabric so I'm starting with the centres of the blocks and slowly working out block by block, adjusting fabrics as I go. I want to use the most striking fabrics as the centres of the blocks (mostly florals) and surround them with polkadots and mostly geometrics. Since there are 14 blocks and I only have 9 centre fabrics I've had to duplicate a few.
The fabrics are a mix of Amy Butler and 'Botanica' by Art Gallery Fabrics and I think they go quite well. The only one I'm both nervous of, and tentatively excited about, is the larger pink flowered Amy Butler (sorry don't know the pattern off-hand). It will either look great or totally out of place. I'm such a newbie at this that I'm not sure how using differently-scaled patterns works, and even if it's a matter of personal taste I have no idea what mine is on the subject! I know what I don't like in quilts, but pinning down what I do like is harder.
The most striking thing I've come across so far is in the fabric quality - the Amy Butler is streets ahead of the Art Gallery, which is thinner, not as well printed and the pattern isn't always printed with the grain which leads to such a dilemma, cut with the pattern or the grain?
Good on you for giving it a go. I did a class for my first quilt. It was a big help. You could check out local colleges, many run patchwork classes at night. At our we all make whatever we want, some of us are quite experienced, some newbies, the tutor just helps whoever needs it :-)
ReplyDeleteMost fabric is cut across the width of the fabric for quilting, so from selvedge to selvedge. Hope that helps.
I'm so excited!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteA quilting course would have been brilliant, but nothing I could find started at the right time, it was either too soon or too late - but I fully intend on taking one because I'm sure there are all sorts of tricks to make this easier and less fiddly! I'm sure this is inspiring Jess with inordinate amounts of confidence ;)
ReplyDeleteLove the fabrics! I bet it will turn out great!
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