The orange is my background, and I had thought about doing a different black with white dots for each letter, but I didn't have enough. Going from left to right, I like the first one, find the second one too regular, I like the third and think it would add interest because of the varying density of dots (or it might just be distracting), the fourth is one of my all-time favorite B&W fabrics, and the fifth...well...it isn't dotted but has a crackled look that says Halloween to me. Here's a close-up:
I would make all the letters with this crackly one but I think the contrast with the orange may not be great enough. So currently I'm leaning towards using only one fabric, either fabric 3 or 4, but every time I go to cut strips, I waffle. Please, advise!And I have another fabric dilemma. I'm making big strip sets of blues, which will be cut into wonky squares and re-assembled. It's for a quilt for my family room, which is done in brights (yes, it's my family room, so what else would you expect?), with yellow walls and a red sofa and red, blue, green and yellow in the curtains and art and even one piece of furniture. The plan had been to intersperse bits of brights (reds, yellows, greens) among the reassembled pieces, but now I'm wondering. Here's a starting piece:
As I sew, it calls out to me, "I am the ocean, the waves, the sea...I am the sparkling blue Mediterranean...I dance with the sunshine..." and all I can see is bits of yellow playing with it, not red. Guess I will cut it and play around to see, but I need to get something up in my family room after a year of promising to do so.
For a complete change of topic, here are the earrings I'm wearing today. I love them. When I put them on this morning, I realized how quilty they are, though I bought them long before I became a quilter. Perhaps a careful observer would have foreseen it in my future...
Finally, I thought this was interesting.
If word verification drives you crazy (as DH would say, it's a short trip!), you might want to read this article in the New York Times. Seems we might have some interesting new security procedures in our future. Oops, I see blogger has cut off the upside down parrot part of the picture -- you definitely have to read the article now!
19 comments:
what a fun post-I like all the blacks first of all-and would use one per letter although the crackled one is my favorite of them all.
the blues are great...red would go if you include orange as well...I could see yellows going into orange going into red with a few purples thrown in..but that is just me! and what an interesting post on puzzles.
I often get those wrong as the blurring from lower case letter/number trips me up
I like blue and yellow, yet without seeing your room, wonder about just a hint of the other colors in it.
I'm so thankful for the security procedures in constant development. My spam filter groans with the load!
Number 4 for the reasons that you mentioned & because I have some... I think I have some of each of those dots, but no crackle... (Not that I "need" anymore black & white, but I still buy it.)
now to read the article. BTW My non-typing self hates those word verification thingies...
(Thanks for not having one.)
I can see bits of red - kind of like an arty beach scene... In the Simple Rectangles book, the mix those three colors - the life guards on Bondi beach weat red hats, the beach/sun are yellow & the sky/water are blue.
I find that letters are easier to read with only one background fabric and high contrast betwee the letter fabric and the background. I like the crackle one the best. just start cutting strips and start playing and you'll be fine!
love the third B&W fabric -- I think the areas with "axtra" dots will only emphasize the "thump"... if you really wanted to plan you could piece the letters (maybe depending on the size of the pattern) so the heaviness of the dots is mainly at the bottom on the letters, or to the right of the word or some such...
I like the black and whites against the orange. The third one is great and the crackled one too. I love the blues and yes it reminds me the ocean but I am wondering if all the blues would be so same old, same old! What about put in a yellow or soft orange for some contrast?
3 and 5 and keep the same background. I learnt my lesson with trying to mix and match on my Blues quilt which I'm not happy with. I'm still considering chopping it up.
On the other hand, if you plan it surely it's not free?
Take your time over the Family Room quilt. Don't let it rush you.
xx
About the black and whites... That last one, the crackle one, I love, by the way, but it strikes me that it's the only one that doesn't "read" as dots, and there's more white than black in it. If it were me, I would replace another of the dotted fabrics with something different (linear maybe) so the crackled one wouldn't stand out so much. OR I would use the crackled one in two letters and lose one of the other dotted ones.
As for your living room, without photos of the room, I can offer you no suggestions. Except that I wouldn't make it all matchy-matchy.
Can't wait to see THUMP!
I like the crackled looking one the best. Any or all of them would look great though. It also depends on the size of your letters. If they are really small the bigger dots might be too big.
Tough questions...I think selecting fabrics is the hardest part of quilting!
I think I would either use a different b&w dot print for each letter or just the crackle print for all of the letters.
For the blue ocean quilt, what about adding sunset colors...red, yellow, orange?
forget playing with fabric... I'll just spend the rest of the evening amusing myself with trying to turn that parrot right-side up!
I don't think you can go wrong, although the coolest fabric there (number 5) might be a bit hard to read. If it were me I might just try to mix 1, 3 and 4 in each letter or randomly. Doesn't hurt to try, just push forward! Hey, I can turn that parrot upright - that looks like a doable security thing.
funny thing computers are... more work them their worth? always gotta be a step ahead of the crooks... I like the idea of the pictures upside down, slightly more interesting than
typing sjesterker, unsnakey or whatever weird sudo-word things they come up with... ;-)
I think the first or the third one would look great for the letters.
Yellow with blue is always happy. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
I'm choosing not to weigh in on Thump. But my advice for your blue quilt would be to follow your gut. Trust that inner voice. It may surprise you where it takes you, but in the end I bet you'll be happier for it :- )
I love the crackle black print.
As to the blue -- go with your first impression. I always figure it's when I start second-guessing myself that I end up not happy with the result.
You may find the colors you want to add as you cut your fabrics...I always find myself slipping in a few more fabrics as I lay out the quilt top....
I can definitely see yellow with those blues - I would see the red as tropical flowers (hmm, but maybe not in the mediterranean?) I would probably do kind of a deeper more purple-y red - fuschia, even. I think it will look gorgeous either way, but then of course I LOVE those colors. In my eyes you can't go wrong :)
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