Monday 31 March 2014

Hoping for Help

A niece has asked me to make her a quilt; she has sent me some lovely fabrics, and she's been pinning quilts that she's seen, and loved, on Pinterest

These are mostly Pinwheel quilts, but I wonder what your thoughts are regarding the fabrics she's sent?

I'll get some off-white fabric to go with the patterned fabric to make the pinwheel blocks (the off white she sent is minkie, I might use it for a border) but my thoughts are:
  • Are fairly geometric designs, (ie the yellow and diamonds and the Moroccan style aqua) suitable for pinwheels?
  • Will the large scale pattern fabric (left) risk looking like unrelated fabrics when chopped into smaller pieces for a pinwheel?
What do you think of using the large scale print fabric as a plain block? Either randomly or in a pattern with the pinwheels?  Tara pinned this one

And I found this image when I did a Google search on "pinwheel blocks with large scale prints", and I wonder if it would work?  This second one would showcase the flowery fabric in bigger chunks - better? Or not?


I'm hoping some of you will have alternative suggestions??

8 comments:

  1. I'm not much of a quilter. My friend in Japan just made a magic pinwheel block table runner and one of her prints was medium scale.

    http://craftytokyomama2.wordpress.com/2014/03/30/green-gate-tabletopper-and-touring/

    Maybe if you make a few blocks to check the scale and then turn those few blocks and the minky into a smaller throw quilt as an extra.

    I like your second image and I'm sure whatever you decide to do will look fab.

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  2. That's a difficult one, Benta. The large scale print would look good as the setting square if fussy cut, but it would be lost in a pinwheel. The other prints are directional so if the pinwheels were cut as squares and recut they would go in different directions. Can you add any fabrics that would pick put the colours used in the fabrics you've been given? The other thought is to cut stencils of the shapes you'd use and audition the fabrics to see how they would look in those shapes. It would be a shame to lose the boldness of that lovely big print by cutting small shapes.

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  3. The large scale fabric is going to have to be chopped up whatever you do Benta. I actually think that it might be better used in the pinwheels with the geometrics as the setting squares. Having those geometries whirling in all different directions would give me eyestrain :)

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  4. I think I have some of the "Supporting" fabrics from that line if you need more of a range to make it work, so you could keep the bigger print for the larger scale blocks if you want to go that way?

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  5. Good luck with that eclectic bunch! You don't say how much of each you have, and is that a green t-shirt??

    I would use the big print and a darker solid - pink or green for the pinwheels and background, and the other prints for a checkerboard border if you have enough xxx

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  6. Depends how much of the large scale print she gave you, and also the pattern repeat, but I have seen some amazing quilts using that stack-and-whack technique (where each piece of the pinwheel is using the exact some part of the print) If you lay the exact same print on top of 3 other pieces of the exact same print and cut out a square, you would get enough triangles for two or maybe four pinwheels, depending how big the squares are.
    Geometric should be easy enough if you pay attention to the direction of the print and have it going the same way in the final piece.
    Look forward to seeing how you tackle this challenge!

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  7. I think maybe a dark solid in the pinwheels with the bigger print, you may need to audition all the fabrics to see which works best and easiest in the pinwheels!

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  8. I don't think the large scale will suit the pinwheels, and that minky will be a disaster on the front if you try and mix it - it will make a lovely back though.

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