Every so often questions and comments come from readers that I think others would like to hear my response to. That’s when I feature them on the blog. This is one of those days
Lynn wrote:
“I just picked up the February 2022 issue of Better Homes & Gardens American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine with your gorgeous “Inspired by the Past” quilt on the cover. I am in love with it! I am fairly new to quilting, but after looking over your instructions, I think I can do this! I have a few questions, though: How many different medium and dark prints did you use, and how much of each one? Also, how many different cream prints did you use, and how much of each one?”
Oh Lynn. I’m not going to be the best help in answering your questions.
I am a true-to-the-heart scrappy quilter. I have never counted how many different fabrics I’ve used when I make any quilt. I know some of the fabrics were repeated but most often paired with a piece of different fabric. When I made this I contacted Marcus Fabrics and told them I was making a scrappy quilt and they sent me a box of fabric. It was all different sizes and there were end the bolt, odd cuts, and scraps that were sent to me. I made the quilt with them. From looking at the original quilt I noticed there was black in the quilt-I don’t typically use a lot-so when I requested fabric I asked for bright colored reproduction fabrics plus black.
If I were buying fabric for this from a quilt I would buy fat quarters or 1/4 yard cuts of as many different fabrics as possible staying away from browns or dark prints (except black).
Take a copy of the magazine and study it…You can see from these pictures that this was a few-rules quilt. The block below mixes two different golds that make it almost hard to differentiate.
This block uses two different stripes and the stripes go every which way. The block below that used the same color in the middle as come of the points.
The block below the center and the pink almost don’t match… again, in this one the stripes go the same direction.
In the green and yellow block you only see half of, the two greens are technically different but aren’t they oh so close in shade.
Really, this was an anything goes quilt. I really don’t think you can go wrong. Speaking of going wrong…look at my quilt. See the lower 16 patch on the bottom left. I never noticed it before. Two of the exact same prints are side to side.
In the big picture of the quilt, I’ve never noticed that.
In the picture below you can see that some of the blocks have a super busy background print. Some are simple and plain prints.
The quilt was inspired by the vintage quilt. This is one of the… Continue reading
