Colors for Baby Jane

As I mentioned yesterday, when I made my first Dear Jane blocks back in the late 1990's, I had no intention to make the whole Dear Jane Quilt. Over time, that changed.

Some time after that, I recognized Jane Stickle's "trip 'round the world" (TRTW) color arrangement (concentric diamonds of color). I'm not the only one who did not notice this immediately. (Check out the photo in yesterday's post to study the TRTW pattern.) I think it's because of the variety among the blocks -- variety in the fabrics (a different one for each block), and the difference between the blocks themselves. The first overall impression is the sheer variety among the blocks. Anyway, I liked Jane's TRTW plan but, by then I had made some choices that ran against such an arrangement (if I was going to keep each block in the the same position as Jane's blocks.)


Inspiration
Meanwhile, I fell in love with this fabric. It reminded me of mother-daughter dresses that my mom sewed when I was about 3 years old. I loved those dresses. It was so fun to have a dress that matched my mother's! That 1950's dress fabric had a white background but something about the shapes and colors of the flowers in this inspiration fabric reminded me of those mother-daughter dresses. The colors that really caught my heart were the red, pink, sage green, and lemon yellow. Another draw was the red and pink combination -- a mix that reminds me of things Japanese. Somehow, the periwinkle never really registered in my head; that's a bit odd since periwinkle is one of my favorite colors.

I think I made two mistakes with the color: (1) I used all the colors in the fabric for my Dear Jane blocks and (2) I forgot that I was adding another color that was not in the inspiration fabric -- ivory.

How Many Fabrics?
Jane Stickle used a different fabric for every block in her quilt. (Where did they all come from?) I started out planning to do the same. That lead to using fabrics that strayed away from the inspiration fabric. I now have over 90 blocks and I have already repeated several of the fabrics. At this point, I've decided that I will repeat fabrics in the remaining blocks for this quilt. Color is that important to me. This is necessary because when it comes to fabric, all colors are not created equal. Some colors are easier to find in a store while others can require weeks or months or years of hunting. This was a hunch that was confirmed when I took a color theory workshop with Jane Balshaw this winter. Balshaw and I agree on something else -- the colors in the fabrics are coming from the three color "families." Some have a yellow base and others have a blue or red base and that is what's making it all feel "not quite right."

To be continued . . .