Thursday, January 31, 2013

Inspiration.

When designing a quilt or project, what inspires you?  How do you start pulling colors and designs?  Do you always go to your favorite colors or do you try to stretch yourself and use colors that are harder for you to work with?  Does a favorite shirt inspire you for colors?  How about a sunset?


For me, being a photographer, I always look at light.  How the light is bouncing off things, or in the evening how light gives things a warm orange tint, that's what inspires me.  Light outside my front window, or light in a photograph, or blue light coming from the alarm clock at night...I usually notice and see.  Light is what gives things life and dimension.  I'm a lover of light.

Also when designing quilts, I often start with the back of the quilt first!  Seems backwards, but when I find a nice big floral print I like, or a wild geometric, that's when I get excited!

I was putting bolts of fabric away the other day and ran across this very interesting mod fabric...


It's usually a design I would never go to, but I just loved the colors in it.  I don't really decorate with purples in my house, although I often wear it (it goes good with my skin tone!)  So I usually don't gravitate towards purple in my sewing.  But this piece sure got the wheels turning!

So I started pulling fabrics to go with this piece.  This is what I came up with!  A good thing to remember when designing a quilt is value and balance.  You want to make sure you have plenty of lights and darks and mediums.  Too many mediums will make a quilt muddy.  If you have a hard time seeing value, squint your eyes...colors will usually blend together if they are the same value.  

Next, notice how in my spray of colors, I have lots of purples, a few greens, only one blue, and a touch of cream.  Look back at my back piece...lots of purple, some pink, a hint of cream, and one blue!  Things need balance and harmony!


So now...what do to with all these colors!  Tell me what inspires you when design a quilt...or anything!?  Oh and just so you know...these fabrics can found on our website or etsy page.


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