Having cut out all the charms for the Aqua Pop quilt it was time to arrange the charms into a quilt top. I decided to draw up a colour grid on the computer and print it off for reference. Firstly, to make sure I was arranging the 'pluses' correctly (its not as simple as it looks!), and also to jot down the fabric arrangement. 
There are red, pink and aqua fabrics in this quilt so I went for a random, but balanced scatter of colours. I also had to pay attention to the balance of tones as well- not have too many dark tones or light tones next to each other etc. For this quilt I used a good lot of Riley Blakes "Sugar and Spice' range, some Lecien "flower Sugar", "Sherbet Pips", a fair few polkadots (I stash busted those, but they would mainly be "Ta Dot" I think) and some other random quirky japenese fabrics. At the last minute I popped up to Spotlight and picked out a couple Denise Schmidt "Picnics and Fairgrounds" and some Fat Flats. I cut my fabric into 5.5" charms and arranged them in a 13x20 quilt- this will give a very generous single bed quilt. In hindsight the 5.5" charms were somewhat wasteful as I purchased mainly fat quarters and could only manage 9 charms from each fat quarter. Each 'plus' requires 5 charms- so 9 charms meant that almost half of the fat qarter went to waste! Even accounting for partial crosses at the edges of the quilt there was a lot of wastage :( The maths escapes me right now, but I am sure there is a much more efficient way to cut up fat quarters to get multiple sets of 5 charms. I will use up the charms on the back of the quilt, to make matching pillow covers and perhaps even for the binding.
David and and the two youngest had a very involved game of donimoes going on at the same time. George loves donimoes!
An hour later I has my final arrangement of the 'pluses'. I try not to over think randon quilt arrangements. One could easily spent an extra hour rearranging 'pluses' to try and get a better balance of colours and tones, but I tend to think that in the end, once the quilt is drapped over a bed, with pillows on it it wont really matter. The only area that draws my eye is the 'plus' made out of the large red/white polkadot (top right of pic). n this zooned out picture it doesnt look too bad, but IRL it was really catchign my eye. Elizabeth walked in just as I was taking this photo and said "Mum you need to change the red polkadot. It looks weird".
What do you think? I've left it in for now, but I am tempted to swap it out- probably for another red polkadot, but with smaller white dots to it doesnt catch the eye so much.
David and and the two youngest had a very involved game of donimoes going on at the same time. George loves donimoes!
An hour later I has my final arrangement of the 'pluses'. I try not to over think randon quilt arrangements. One could easily spent an extra hour rearranging 'pluses' to try and get a better balance of colours and tones, but I tend to think that in the end, once the quilt is drapped over a bed, with pillows on it it wont really matter. The only area that draws my eye is the 'plus' made out of the large red/white polkadot (top right of pic). n this zooned out picture it doesnt look too bad, but IRL it was really catchign my eye. Elizabeth walked in just as I was taking this photo and said "Mum you need to change the red polkadot. It looks weird".
What do you think? I've left it in for now, but I am tempted to swap it out- probably for another red polkadot, but with smaller white dots to it doesnt catch the eye so much.
After I had finalised the arrangement I made little notes on my grid about what fabric was used for each cross. I used little nicknames like "Scooter" for the Serbet pips fabric featuring the little girl on a scooter etc. I have pinned a row number to each pile and stacked each row into a pile, and then made one megapile from all the row stacks. When I go to sew it all together I can refer back to the paper grid, and even the phot in this blog, to make sure I havent got any of the blocks muddled up.
2 comments:
I love it!! Some of my favourite fabrics in there <3
I didn't even notice the red dot until I went back to look again. My only concern would be removing it would make the aqua/red ta dot do the same thing. Do you have any of the berry ta dot? (or the pink w. red dots?).
IRL that red/aqua polkadot completely escaped my notice, but in the photo it pops out even more than the red/white polkadot! Weird!
Post a Comment