Friday 4 August 2017

The Importance of Auditioning Fabrics

A lot of quilters have design walls where they can lay their blocks out for the quilts they are working on. This has a dual purpose of inspiring (or nagging?) you whenever you go into your sewing room to carry on with your project, but it is also great for auditioning fabrics as it can be useful to be able to take a step back, not only to admire your work but also to see if a particular fabric combination is working. There are custom made design walls available on the market but a large piece of wadding pinned up works equally as well.

Unfortunately I don't have the room for a design wall so have to lay out my WIPs on the floor as best I can, and quite often that is a bit of a struggle, especially with three very inquisitive cats!


This last week I have been playing around with the new Sand in my Shoes fabric collection designed by McKenna Ryan. I just love her fabrics; subtle yet strong colours that blend so beautifully. Having made the quilt centre I was stuck about how to finish it off. I'd used a fat quarter bundle and had plenty of fabrics left so there was scope for adding a border.

First off, I thought about adding a simple pieced border

Excuse my little feet!

But felt this blended in too much so I wondered about adding a thin border of the ombre print in the collection instead....but which one?!


And then bingo! I could do both.....just needed to decide which colour worked best for me....

Green?
Turquoise?
or Purple?!

I went for the green option but I think all of them work well.

Ripples in the Sand Quilt

The fabrics will be at the Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham next week as well the finished quilt, well the top at least. Sadly I won't have time to quilt it beforehand. Kits will be available and the pattern will follow....both at the show and on the website.

Joanna