just curious - order of factors

Hello

I'm just curious: when you want to make a quilt for someone as a gift, how do you go about deciding on what to choose?

Do you choose the fabric and then decide on the pattern or do you decide on a pattern and then choose the fabric?

I often find that I see a fabric or fabric series that would be just perfect for so and so and then I find that I struggle to find a pattern suitable for those fabrics.

Like now; I saw some fabric squares on ebay that "spoke" to me; they are perfect for a friend of mine. So now, what pattern do I use?

Here is a link to a picture of the fabric:

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Any suggestions?

Claudia

Reply to
claudia
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With beachy wedding quilty thingy, I knew that both were fond of the beach and weren't afraid of bright colors so I decided on Snail Trail but with a different color arrangement than the usual alternating arms. The pattern was made to resemble waves, ocean water and sunset sky and what better fabric to represent all that than batiks? With the gorgeous fabric you found on eBay, I would think some kind of watercolor technique or something that would preserve the big roses. Garden Lattice maybe?

Reply to
Debi Matlack

That's a very distinctive group of fabrics Claudia. I think you should use a very simple pattern. What about Yellow Brick Road - or some similar pattern which is a mixture of squares and rectangles. I really don't think you would want to be cutting too small, and I think triangles would be a waste of your time.

The way they are arranged there, they could almost be half-log-cabin blocks, with wide logs - perhaps that would be good? but, on balance I think I would like to see something where the block division isn't too awfully obvious. If you don't want to buy the YBR pattern, you could look through Quilterscache or somewhere like that for a similar pattern. . In message , claudia writes

Reply to
Patti

Hmmm what gorgeous fabrics! I would say attic windows using the truest black for the frames/sashing you can find. With perhaps just the thinnest of grey/white between the "window" and the focus fabric. Does that make sense?

Reply to
Sharon Harper

Thank you, Claudia, for showing us this line. Eleanor Burns is such a high energy sort of person that she exhausts me, I probably would never even have looked at these without your asking about them. They're beautiful, just beautiful. You never know with a pc monitor what colors truly are - but I think I see red and rosy pinks, glorious greens, toasty gold and maybe even some blue. I wonder what our Mickey would do with these. We haven't heard from her in quite a while. Where are you thinking of going with these? I believe they would be gorgeous in anything from a Christmas WH to a king-size quilt. Polly

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Reply to
Polly Esther

Could go either way. Mostly I just make quilts that please me and then decide what to do with them. Once I started a quilt for a particular person, but the quilt insisted on going to someone else. So might as well wait before making any momentous decisions.

Pretty fabric! A simple pattern to showcase big designs: Make each of these squares into 2 HST squares using the contrast fabric of your choice. (A pink and green stripe, if such exists?) Your 32 pieces would become 64 squares, which you could set 8X8, with all the print triangles pointed the same direction, and it would come to about 40" square. Add some borders and call it a lap quilt. Roberta in D

"claudia" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news: snipped-for-privacy@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com...

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Reply to
Roberta Zollner

How about teaming them with a nice cream and doing alternating Puss-in-Corner and Basket blocks? You could *sort of* fussy cut the center of the Basket blocks so the roses look like they're IN the baskets - sort of a mock applique!

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Reply to
Connie

Here comes Ms. Party-Pooper.... If you bought those squares and sewed them all together you'd get a layout of 6 squares X 5 squares with two left over. The actual size would 30.5 in. X 36.5 in..... less than a yard. The current bids are over the price you'd pay for a full yard, and the shipping cost isn't added on either, so I'd say pass on this auction. But *do* find a use for those gorgeous fabrics in a quilt for your friend!

First I'd say to find a block pattern that uses at least one largish square for the largest of the prints and smaller pieces for the other fabrics. Then determine what size quilt you want to make. Find an online fabric store and order the amounts of those fabrics that you truly need. Buying pre-cut squares is paying too much per yard and limiting you in your choice of quilt blocks. Do you pre-wash? Pre-cut squares would be a bother. Are they cut exactly square? Are they cut on grain? Why trust someone else to do the cutting and then pay for their labor as well?

My suggestion would be to use the largest print as a fussy cut (or not) 6 in. center in a log cabin block with the other prints in 2 in. cut/1.5 in. finished logs on one side of the center and tone on tone prints or batiks or small prints of all the colors for the logs on the other side- arranged from the lightest colored fabric nearest the center to the black on the last outside log on that side- or use a black outside log on all four sides to frame each of the blocks. That pattern would showcase the gorgeous large print and give some true drama to the piecing... and those colorways truly deserve and need drama! Gorgeous contrasts! VBG

But any quilt block that has a large center would be great for those fabrics- a snail's trail with an oversized center, the attic windows already mentioned, a triple Irish chain with the large print for the biggest squares in the block, etc. I wouldn't choose a fussy/many pieces block that would chop up those glorious huge roses.

Best of luck and bless you for thinking of your friend!

Leslie & The Furbabies in MO.

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Reply to
Leslie & The Furbabies in MO.

If Leslie is going to get nasty about the ebay collection , I'll join her and mention that there's a really good buy at Honey Fork - 14 FQs for $28 for this Through the Seasons line. It's available at heaps of online shops; The Stitching Post has some gorgeous ones. I saw stripes, checks and nosegays while searching for the FQ collection. Polly

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Reply to
Polly Esther

Howdy!

Usually the fabric inspires a quilt; sometimes I see a pattern and start rootling the stash, have to make it right now!

Your ebay fabric collecti> Could go either way. Mostly I just make quilts that please me and then

Reply to
Sandy Ellison

Both! Different times bring different inspirations. No help at all, am I?

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I'll agree with Leslie in saying that I think you'd end up paying far too much for these gorgeous prints. If you can find them somewhere else, you could buy the measurements you need and not worry about working 6" squares into a pattern. You could also add either some soft cream or perhaps a tone-on-tone pink (same shade as some of the roses or a bit paler) to rest the eye from the busy-ness of the prints.

Reply to
Sandy

Dewey Blocks using the whole 6.5" floral squares as the centers, that way you get the full effect of those 24 luscious floral prints. Cut the green foliage squares and use them in the surrounding little squares alternating them with some pink/rose squares. I'd use gold or tan for the narrow strips. You would end up with 24 lovely blocks.

Here is the Quilter's Cache page for it, but you will have to do some math to make them using your 6.5" centers.

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It is a simple block to make, but often overlooked by today's quilters, so your quilt would be somewhat one of a kind. Debra in VA See my quilts at
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Reply to
Debra

Oh, that's lovely. I've never seen it before - I really like it. Thanks Debra. . In message , Debra writes

Reply to
Patti

You're welcome, Patti. I seem to be drawn to unusual blocks all the time. I just love looking at this one in particular and it seems to work well with all sorts of prints from repros to florals to bright novelties. Debra in VA See my quilts at

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Reply to
Debra

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