I just realized today that when I went to the fabric store yesterday, I was drawn to the brightest and boldest colors I could find. I wanted colors that POPPED when I looked at them. I wanted this because I wanted to put them on a quilt with a black background. I don't mean neon or some of those strange prints that I never understand. I mean Color! I feel like so many of the fabrics I am seeing are muted. I want Zing! Not gaudy...but bright. I want Spring with none of the pastels. Oh....if I were a fabric designer, I would go up to Skagit County - to the Tulip Festival....and I would take pictures of all of those colors. That would be my line. Tulips in Spring.
http://www.tulipfestival.org/galleries
Color is fun especially the saturated colors...I love brights and am drawn to the tone on tone, blenders, solid / mottled colors too.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started quilting I started quilts with Civil WAr / Reproduction fabrics / florals ... but I rarely finished the projects. Why you asked because that was what the LQS carried. I think quilters are trapped by what the local shops carry. Yes you can order on line but that is like buying a pig in a poke... YOu do not know what you are getting until it arrives.
It was not until I started traveling away from my regular quilt shop that I found colors I liked. I have not bought any fabrics from the LQS unless it fit my criteria of bright / saturated colors in the past year. I also switched to only small amounts because I do a lot of scrappy style quilts full of color but each color family of multiple patterns/ scale / fabrics.
I was getting tired of some of my fabrics that I have had for a long time and not used. So I came up with the idea of using them in color families. I put all my green fabrics together in a Bear's Paw quilt and the combination of the greens made them all look exciting again. I used a white on white background to really make them pop. I never dreamed that when I started collecting my stash that I would tire of some of it, but the color family thing really works.
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