The Next Quilt in the Hoop and Playing With Ideas For a New Quilt

So I took the plunge. Sandwiched and pinned my Quarter Circles quilt! I finished up the hand quilting on the Scrap Attack #2 yesterday and well.., you know me. Never good to have an hoop empty laying around.

The new quilt in the hoop

Still not sure exactly how I intend to quilt this scrappy quilt. Sometimes though, I don't figure it out until the quilt is actually in the hoop, on my lap and needle in my hand. Occasionally I even start stitching, change my mind and take out half a hoops worth of stitching. Nothing ventured, nothing gained! Eventually I will get a clear picture in my mind of how it needs to look and then I'm off to the races. lol  NOT! Hand quilting is not ever about the race although I do love a good finish and have been known to work a bit more feverishly towards the end.

Quarter Circles next up!

After working on the darker, moodier colors of my last quilt, I'm ready for some lighter fabrics all the way around. These particular fabrics sort of called out to me over the weekend. {Oh the lovely subtleties of some cream based prints.} My imagination was practically vibrating while I was picking and sorting through all the available prints in my stash.

Playing with low-volume prints

I stacked them together in a way that helps tremendously to narrow down the ones that shriek 'I don't belong with this crowd!' Of course your opinion and mine will probably clash on this particular subject, but that's the inherent beauty of quilting. Fabric choices/combinations are one of the easiest ways to celebrate our individuality.

Add this?

I tossed out the dark paisley and added in a gorgeous panel fabric I won over at Barb's awhile back. Of course that made me change directions in how the layout might or might not happen. Panel fabrics are such a delight to experiment with.

Add that?

Adding in that fabric also made me realize how one dimensional my thinking was in relation to the color I was playing with. It usually helps to have a bit of contrast in our quilts to help emphasize the best parts. How about a blush of pink? And that floral print on the right side? Don't worry. I tossed it immediately after the picture was taken. Ack! What was I thinking? Can't have anything competing with the star fabric.

A bit of color....

I played with the idea of adding in some coral and orangey reds. But every piece of fabric I laid down next to the others made me feel sort of ill. So finally, in an absolute bid of desperation, I added in some rich, purpley browns. Really, that wasn't supposed to happen. Those bossy brown fabrics just sort of adamantly demanded to be added even though I sometimes feel like brown is a color that gets used as a crutch in my narrow window of design ideas. Yep, I even resisted for long enough to take a break and change over the laundry downstairs. Talk about willpower. I am the girl!

Then, when I came back upstairs to the quilt room, it was really easy to do the quick! how-does-this-look-with-a-fresh-eye test! Ahh shoot... about two seconds later, I totally capitulated. Lots of sighs and grumbles under my breath about the lack of originality in my tiny little pea brain, I'll tell you that much. I SO don't want to lose the wispy, low-volume, mixed print ideas that are percolating in my brain! But we are who we are. As my sister likes to say, sometimes it's best if we 'Just rock it'!

Always an excuse to use brown....

This was part of my inspiration even though none of the fabrics used there are prints. Seeing that quilt definitely made my brain think about possibilities even though I didn't even realize what was simmering for a few days. Maybe if I use the dark browns very small and quite sparingly, they won't overpower the rest? I know, I know. It's a take-off of a certain color range you've all seen around here once before. Maybe this quilt will have it's own style! Stranger things have happened....