Please note: this will be our last evening meeting at Alfalfa’s. Due to changes to their room rental policy, we will be moving locations of our meetings. We are working out the final details of the new location in the Louisville area and will inform everyone soon.
If you signed up for the Kona COTY challenge, we will be distributing the fabric at the meeting.
The May evening meeting will be a little different. This is a hands on presentation, so members must bring a pair of paper scissors, and a work surface (clip board, piece of cardboard or any lap size sturdy surface. We will study the use of negative space in quilting. This is to start your creative juices flowing in making a quilt for our end of the year quilt show “Unoccupied: The Importance of Negative Space”.
OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS
The May open sew will be on Saturday, May 18 at Alfalfa’s Market. If you plan on attending, please RSVP.
We will be doing a giveaway for anyone who has finished their 2018 BoulderMQG quilt top by the May 18 open sew. Make sure to bring your finished tops for show and tell.
The BoulderMQG will be presenting “Unoccupied : The Importance of Negative Space“, a quilt show sponsored by the The Collective – Community Arts Center. The show will run from November 14, 2019 – January 6, 2020 and is open to any BoulderMQG member to submit quilts to be juried. Submissions open May 1, but you can read the full call for submissions here.
March was the first month of the Boulder MQG fabric pull challenge. Every month there is a new fabric pull prompt on Instagram. You don’t need to actually make anything, we just want to see how you interpret the prompt and the fabrics you choose. But if you are inspired to make something with the fabric pull, we’d love to see that too! The first prompt was “Hoarded Fabric” and here are the fabric pulls that were posted. For April the prompt is “Spring Pastels” and Karla wrote a fantastic blog post about her process for choosing fabrics, make sure you read that here. So play along and post your fabric pulls on Instagram using #bouldermqgfabricpull We’d also love to have you write your own post explaining how you choose fabrics, if you’re interested in sharing your process, you can submit a blog post in the member area.
Every month for the rest of the year we will be doing a fabric selection challenge based on a preselected theme. To play along, you just need to pull a selection of fabrics from your stash and post a photo using the hashtag #bouldermqgfabricpull – you don’t even need to make anything (but you might want to)!
For the month of April, the theme is “spring pastels.” The interpretation of “pastel” is definitely a little loose in this post, since my stash is pastel challenged.
This month I would like to walk you through my fabric selection process step-by-step. This isn’t the last word on fabric pulls (there are so many ways to do this!), but it works for me. For this pull, I’ve once again chosen a centerpiece fabric to serve and an anchor to bring all the colors together. This month, it is Tula Pink’s Slow and Steady Pit Crew Snails.
If you know me, you know I rarely use solids in my quilting and I generally jump in to my fabric pulls without a stop in solidsville. However, solids do not distract the eye in the process of color matching, so I’ve use them here as an approachable path to pattern matching. It also helps that most of my pastels in my stash are in the form of solids!
Step 1:
The first thing I do is isolate the color scheme used in the main fabric. This is a really effective way to create a color story in your quilt – most fabric designers use color in a very intentional way. If the fabric speaks to you with a certain voice, there’s a good chance that a fabric pull with coordinating colors will also have a story to tell. If you will be adding fabrics to this pull after the first step, you can choose colors that all have roughly the same value, since you will be adding depth in the next steps. However, if you are going to stop after step 1, you would want to make sure that your coordinating fabrics all have varying values so that your quilt does not appear flat.
You could easily go with this small pull as your full color scheme, there’s no need to go further.
Step 2:
Select a fabric that has a value darker or lighter for each of your coordinating fabrics to add to the mix. It doesn’t matter if this color is represented in the original fabric or not because your color choices are anchored to your main fabric by your initial pull. Notice how bringing in a shade darker for each hue has made it possible to see the shading and depth in the centerpiece fabric, it really brings it to life when you compare it to the pull that has a more flat value in step 1.
Step 3:
Now it’s time to add prints! Replace your second solid with a print that contains the same tint/shade that you’ve added in step 2 (darker or lighter than your first selection in each hue). Replacing with the low volume prints of the same value have changed the character of the pull and given it more of an overall pastel feeling. Note: for most of my pulls, I eliminate step 1 & 2 and move straight on to step 3 and pull prints without stopping by any solids.
Step 4:
(Optional) You can test out your fabrics one color range at a time to see if you like how they play together. Again, you could use this smaller pull for a block or a full quilt if this speaks to you.
Step 5:
Audition your fabric pull together to see if you are happy with it once you’ve finished your color-focused mini-pulls! This is where you might change out a color that stands out as not belonging in the quilt. If I had a lighter one on hand or wanted to purchase fabric, I might reduce the brightness of the Kona green and look for a more blue-purple Kona. However, I’m pretty happy with this as it is!
We’d love to see your fabric pulls! Make sure you’re sharing them on Instagram using #bouldermqgfabricpull
