Sunday, July 20, 2008

Day 92 - of 100 Days of Quilts
Crayon Box

It's time for another test - to see how good is your memory. Do you remember this quilt? We've called it Crayon Box, because it is done with our fun kids line of fabric, but originally it was done in different colors, called 'Amish Bars', and we posted it back on Day 26. (we have some kits and patterns available for this quilt in the shop.)

I chose this quilt to talk about today, because it goes along with Cori's theme of changing up colors and layouts to come up with your own unique quilt. We love the original quilt, which was done in soft blue's and tans, but by changing the color, it suddenly has a completely different feel.

I know that it can be hard to get past the color of a quilt, to actually see the design, but here is a trick that I picked up when working in my mother's quilt shop. My mother has issues of Quilter's Newsletter magazine, dating back to the early 80's. Sometimes when I would look through these old copies, it was hard to see the great quilt, because you just focused on the glaring fabric colors. So what we did, is to take an old quilt from a magazine, and photocopy the picture into a black and white image. Suddenly you are more focused on blocks, and you are able to pick new colors for the quilt, because the old colors are not interfering. So the next time you need to pick new colors for a project, eliminate the old colors, and it will be much easier to make new choices.

See you tomorrow.
-myra

P.S. Jean asked a few question under our Day 90 quilt..so here are the short answers. The little girl in the picture is the daughter of a friend of ours. (we sometimes borrow small children from our friends!) And when I made the comment about fabrics that 'last longer' I made a grammatical error. I did not mean to imply that they have a longer lifespan, I meant to imply that they are available for purchase longer than other prints - which come and go from the shelves very quickly. If you have any other questions, Cori and I will be making a special section where you will able to ask us 'stuff ' when these 100 days of quilts are done. So stay tuned! Fun things are on their way.

1 comment:

annette said...

You are so right - this quilt has a totally different feel than the "original". What a fun quilt made up this way, while the blue/tan is so elegant. Love the photocopy idea.... I am thoroughly enjoying these 100 Days of Quilts and will miss it... but don't worry I'll keep visiting and will browse through when needing a little inspiration! Thanks for all the time you both have put into this - I, for one, have loved it :)