bluemeadowdesigns

Breaking the rules

Cori was down on Thursday, and the few afternoon hours that we had just flew bye!!

During the 100 days of quilts, we have been showing you our past quilts. Many of these have been designed and made to fit into a specific format of a book or magazine. What you haven't been seeing, are the quilts that we are creating now. These are NEW designs made for no one's purpose but our own. So, Cori and I spent a day playing with colors...and it is the thing that we do best.

At my mother's store, we use to stack and play with fabrics for hours. We don't have that large resource at our fingertips anymore, but we can still play. And at the risk of being too bold and forward - we have a few suggestions for quilters and quilt shops....

Suggestion #1 - BREAK THE COLLECTIONS!!
Over the past few years, we have let ourselves be limited to collections. Some quilters almost feel it is wrong to add a fabric from a different collection into their quilt. Quilts aren't suppose to be Puritans, they are suppose to be creative and beautiful. And stores are also letting themselves be limited by collections. What happens when one print is sold out? Suddenly they don't know what to do with the remaining fabrics. Do you ever think of mixing a 30's print with a bali? Why not?

Suggestion #2 - STOCK THE BASICS
Some shops have become so focused on buying collections, that they forget to stock basics like handsprays and solids. I know these are 'boring' fabrics, but they can be very essential in building a quilt. I personally go through several bolts of solid white in a year. I LOVE crisp white as a base for the bold prints, and I am always surprised when I go to a quilt shop, and they don't have solid white or solid black.

So here is a quick example of mixing fabrics. We started with a piece of Amy Butlers' Lotus, (the large floral) and added our black & white paisley (from our Bohemian Rhapsody line), along with our green leaves, and a black RJR handspray. And suddenly you have a new combination that no one has seen before.
















Then we played some more. We started with a large print (I think it's Amy's) added our teal paisley to the left side, added a moss green/brown handspray, our gold paisley, some body's stripe, a piece of a Heather Bailey, and our geometric backsplash print. It looks awesome together. And just for fun, we might throw in another teal or green. (our own prints that we used are all from our Bohemian Rhapsody line)

And on a side note. How did we come up with the idea of 100 days of quilts? Well this past December when Cori and I were trying to fly into Chicago, and we were in a 'holding pattern' waiting to land, I told her about a site I love to visit. It's http://www.materialobsession.com.au/ and it is a shop in Australia. The best part is that they have a very unique way of mixing colors. They are way more adventurous than many of us, and I love to learn from what they do. And the other best part of their site is their blog. They actually have quilts on their quilting blog! And lately I have been getting a little frustrated by quilters and designers who put everything except quilts on their quilting blog.

So now that I have vented out somethings that I have kept bottled up, I can take a deep breath, and go back to the designing board. And who knows what we will have to share with you at the end of our 100 days.

-myra