Quilts offer a lot of opportunity to play with color and color placement. When you change the color placement on a design, you can get very different looking results.
I have taken a fair number of quilting classes over the years. My favorite classes are those that stretch my skills and teach me new things.
In 2008, my guild had a teacher in named Sharyn Craig. Her class was teaching a couple of piecing skills – curved seams and y-seams. Piecing is the term for how you put the fabric together to make the quilts.
Since I hadn’t been quilting very long, I wanted to take her course to learn these skills. I knew in advance what the block was, so I went to my trusty design software (Electric Quilt) and started playing with color.
I came up with a fun layout placing the colors in concentric circles on the quilt.
If you look at the bright yellow center, you can see the basic block “Hands all Around.” If you look closely at the other blocks, you will see they are the same block.
After the top was done, I needed to figure out how to quilt it. I decided to contrast the curved lines of the piecing with straight quilting lines.
It was a tricky quilt to sew, but I learned two new techniques and the end result was a fun design.
Another example
Another quilt that shows the difference that color can make is this one. Judy Laquidara was the teacher and the pattern is called “Morning Splash.” I loved the pattern but wasn’t too sure of the colors.
Here were the colors for the original design. It is a beautiful quilt, but I wasn’t sure I would want a bed sized quilt with those colors.
So I decided to change it up. I substituted fall colors instead of the brights:
This quilt ended up as a gift for someone, and I decided to make a wall hanging to go along with it.
Sherrey
You do such beautiful work!