Friday, January 15, 2010

Color choices again

In my new year to-do list was another swipe at the Carol Doak paper pieced star patterns. I decided to use this fun polka dot black fabric as the background for several that will become ... well, I don't know how big a quilt. Maybe it will be 16 blocks [they're 12x12] with stripping. Or maybe it will grow to 20 blocks. It partly depends on whether I have enough of the background fabric.
I seem to be very much in a black and red period the last year or so. These blocks will be predominantly shades of red with other colors as seems right. Color has been my bugaboo ever since I started doing the quilts from her Fifty Fabulous Stars book. I consider it a good exercise in understanding what works and what doesn't.
Some of these four stars have had other iterations -- well, just a quarter not the whole thing. The problem seems to be that when fabrics are spread out for consideration the variations in tone [or is it hue?] seem marked and dramatic. But when I sew them into these relatively small bits, all kind of bunched together in the middle of the star they blend rather than contrast. I love the fact that fabrics blend in quilts, it's one of my favorite things about quilting. But in these stars I want a different effect and I have a lot of difficulty deciding which fabric to use.
This is not exactly the start of something big, but definitely it will grow bigger. Just half a square at a time while I work on other slow projects as well, approaching them in the same piece by piece manner.

OH, my gosh! I just looked at these pictures, despite having had these squares pinned to my design wall, I see the light yellowish diamonds in the top star are wrongly placed in three out of eight instances. Will I redo it? You gotta be kidding. It is said that the Amish quilters used to deliberately sew in a mistake so as not to challenge God's perfection. And I've always said God's got nothing to worry about from me; I can make imperfections without even knowing it.

4 comments :

Diana said...

June, your stars are beautiful! The black background really sets them off, and whether it's blending or contrast you're going after, the stars themselves look very fresh and bold. I can't wait to see the next ones.

Ladydy5 aka: Diane Yates said...

June, why did you have to point that out. They look so beautiful, good job.

sew2speak said...

Me I wouldn't change it either. The top star is my favourite even with it's imperfections. I like a bit of irregularity myself - just tell everyone it was a deliberate mistake :-)
Ruth
www.sew2speak.com

Unknown said...

Well I never noticed and I had to look twice. They are beautiful. I love the dots in the background.