Pulling Some Fabrics

My sleeves are rolled up and I am ready to start churning out these quilts.  I've had a look at my stash and a look at the list of quilts.  This morning I'll be pulling fabrics for half a dozen quilts just to get ready.

First the Americana quilt I think.

 

I think that will work out pretty well. I'm trying for an antique look to the quilt and so will be using neutrals instead of whites.  IF YOU WANT TO PLAY ALONG choose 8 to 10 each of red, white and blue prints in a variety of saturations, but only one hue.  As long as you have about a 6" strip worth of fabric, it will be useable.  There won't be any hard and fast rule about which blue to use for which block for instance, so just aim for hauling out about 2 yards total on each color.


Next I want to select fabrics for the Easy Color Strip quilt.

My brights stash isn't beefy. This was hard work for me!  IF YOU WANT TO PLAY ALONG choose a light, medium, and dark fabric from each of the following colors:  magenta, pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet and a black and a white.  I'm using kona black and kona white.  As long as you have at least 7" strips of your colors you'll have enough.  Remember too that if you want to use a random color scheme, or if you'd like to use a monochromatic scheme (or an all 40's feedsacks theme or whatever) all you have to do is substitute the 24 fabrics of your choice in place of the rainbow I've selected.

Onward... to Bland quilt!

Wow. It sure seems faster in a blogpost than it does in person. I agonized over this selection for quite some while. The only way I know to do this is pull a bunch of things from your stash that you KNOW are neutrals. Then start adding colorful things to the group that you suspect might be neutrals. Step back once in a while and look at them all together. Yank out the ones that really stand out.  I had one fabric in there for a while that ended up looking like bright teal when i stepped back.  0.o  IF YOU WANT TO PLAY ALONG choose as many neutrals as you can find in your stash.  If it is at least 3" x 4" you'll be able to use it.  Shoot for collecting at least ten fabrics and at least 6 yards for a queen sized quilt.

I'm all tired now, so the last quilt I want to choose fabrics for today is my TATW.  mmmmmm!  Blacks.

Clearly not everyone will want to make this quilt in blacks. Regardless of what the color is you choose, if you choose12 to 15 colors you'll do fine.  The only tricky part for me was getting the gradations right in all those black and white fabrics.  Sometimes when you stand too close you end up getting some of them in the wrong place.  IF YOU WANT TO PLAY ALONG choose at least 12 fabrics for your gradation.  For the fabrics that appear in the darkest band on my quilt you will need at least five 4 1/2" strips of each color.  For the fabrics on the corners you will only need about 16" x 4 1/2".  Guesstimate for the ones in between for now.

Ok.  It will take me a day or so to work up all the cutting requirements for these four quilts.  I'll show pictures of my kitted up quilts with links to cutting charts on the next post.  Good luck!