The Lighter Side

Back to the black and white quilt. (See previous post.) This time I used lighter colors. Once again, I welcome your comments and suggestions! Remember, click on the photos to enlarge them.

G. [No photo.] Check out this spectacular Flickr pool of fabulous medallion quilts. Aside from the impressive skill level, what I love is the interaction of the colors. Aren't they scrumptious? The design is based on a ~12" central medallion with more than a dozen fancy borders. What if I made this into the central piece in a contemporary medallion quilt? Should I first square it up with the addition of more of these kind-of-random, kind-of-controlled blocks? I could use the cobblestones to form a border, but could I come up with enough contemporary borders?

Now that I think about it, when I made the central piece, my plan was to go from light to dark; I just ran out of steam. You can see the beginning of that transition on the left and right sides of the first photo. Maybe I should go back to my original plan.

H. For this light series, I started with a complete field of one fabric that, for me, is a modern take on a black and white toile -- minus the people and animals. I know this is not a true toile nor is it a modern spin on a toile. In other words, this is how a toile would look from across a football field! LOL! For me toile means kicking back and enjoying a shady spot in nature on a summers' day. You can read more about toile here. I like the serenity of this arrangement but I worry that I would be bored with it before the quilt was done. There seems to be a fine line between serene and boring.

I. Next I added a fabric that has a pale yellow/ivory ground with drifting leaves that read as gray or pale slate blue depending upon what is next to it. These colors pick up one of my very favorite fabrics in the sewn section. It's the beige batik fabric in the closeup photo (right). The colors in that fabric glow! I wish I had 3 more yards of that fabric instead of my single tiny strip; I'm still kicking myself for not buying more. They just don't seem to make batiks with this color subtlety anymore.

J. Next, I added a darker fabric at the top. This is the remaining fabric from a beloved summer top that I no longer wear. It has a dark periwinkle yolk with hand stitched purple French knots (I think in silk) around the edges of the yolk. Perhaps I should cut it up and use it in this quilt. It would make a very pretty pieced border. I wonder where I put it?

K. Finally, I threw in the cobblestones because the opposite of a medallion is an all over effect. If I border all of the cobblestones with the toile, they will appear to float which will contrast with the density and darkness of the central piece.