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Sunday, March 7, 2010

STARTING OVER SAME CONCEPT

Hi,
I was playing with the block layout, and discovered I don't have enough 2 inch squares to finish my concept, so I pulled out the 4 inch squares, and designed the layout to my quilt while still using the value concept.

I pulled out all of the greens, and made two piles, one dark and one light.  As you know values can be very difficult to determine because one color or value can be dark, but at the same time light depending on what fabric you place with it.  Anything that was lighter than the dark pile or darker than the light pile obviously went in the medium (middle) pile.  Exuberant Color had a great way of explaining it.  She makes it a lot more advanced with mixing the colors, and using value alone.  Beautiful Quilts, I love her site.  The only reason why I am doing this is because I want to use up my precut fabric stash.  I don't have that much sewing experience, and she is very advanced.  I guess what I am trying to say is that I don't want to seem like a "Copy Cat", just trying to use up my precut scraps, and I always wanted to learn value.  I just put colors together without thinking about it.  This is exhausting planning everything out.  So, here goes..  My nine patch block had a floral or design going diagonally in the middle.  One side (top) was darks, and the other side (lower) was lights.  I started from the flower and on the top worked from lights to darks out of my dark pile.  Then on the lower I went from darks to lights using my light pile.  Same concept just different fabrics.  Since I am using 4 inch precut squares, instead of 2 inch precut squares, I only need 2 of each color since my design requires two blocks of each color.  Did I lose anyone??  I think I lost myself.  Hopefully I explained it right.  A lot easier to just do, than to teach or explain.  The greens were easier to sort than the blues.  I know there are many flaws in my logic or way of thinking but this is my learning process.  I will show you as I progress what I did with the previously sewn blocks.
  Here are the blue and green examples of the piles...  There are 14 different fabrics in each of the 2 piles.  The 2 piles are identical.  I need to make 2 blocks (squares) for the design.
There are 2 dark greens that are very close in value.  If you look at the black leaves you would think that fabric is darker, but if you look at the background print, you would see that it is maybe a half of shade lighter.  Those two fabrics are probably not the best in a value quilt, but they work
with this design, so I am going to keep them in the pile.



3 comments:

Renée's Country Crafts LLC said...

I see I contradicted myself in the picture by the way I layered the fabrics. I have the darks on the bottom. It really doesn't matter, as long as you are consistent through out the whole block and project. I guess I shouldn't be doing this when I am tired. Sorry for the confusion.
Renee

Jean said...

I think we all learn lots from each other's blogs and most people aren't offended if you use their ideas. If someone was worried about that, they wouldn't post for the world to see.

Colleen said...

Thanks for sharing your stacks of color values, very interesting. I also read Exuberant Color value tutorial, she is a wonderful educator and I am sure she shares in order to help others. Looking forward to your progress.
Colleen