One of my favorite things to do is to find a beautiful Image, extract the colors from the image and then find fabrics to go with those colors. It’s a great way to experiment with color and to select a beautiful palette for a new project. So, in honor of National Poinsettia Day on December 12, I worked with a photo taken at a local business, Merrifield Garden Center, by one of our staffers, Nancy, and created a bundle of fabric that is also this week’s web special.
In addition to the fabrics, I wanted to give you a suggestion for a project which uses these fabrics. I’ve chosen the block, Triangle Charm, from our Quilters Block Library . This is a free pattern which can be downloaded in a 6, 10 or 12-inch block. I selected a 10-inch block. This allows you to easily cut the triangles from 3-inch strips.
A half yard bundle will give you plenty of fabrics to make sixteen 10 or 12–inch blocks with leftovers for other projects. You will need additional fabrics for your choice of border.
The block is an easy one made with a simple right triangle. The final outcome of the design is reflected in the amount of each color used. The secret is in the shading and there are a variety of ways to shade it. For this blog, I have chosen two variations. Block 1 has more darks with the lights giving the sparkle and Block 2 has the color shading reversed so there are more lights in the quilt. Both have exactly the same fabrics from our Poinsettia bundle.
Select the block you prefer then layout and arrange one block to use as a fabric placement reference for the remaining ones.
In the layout I have used, half of the blocks are made one way and the other half are reversed. Block 1 is used here.
First, four of the regular blocks are pinwheeled. Make two of these regular pinwheel units.
The reverse blocks are also pinwheeled as shown below. Make two of these.
Arrange the regular and reverse pinwheel units as follows:
In past blogs I have talked about proportions of color and how different a quilt can look depending on how much of each color is used. The color impact of this same design, using block 2, which contains more light colors is quite striking.
To me, adding a border to a quilt, is like putting a frame on a painting. It finishes off the design. Like paintings, some quilts do not call for a final “frame” but for the most part, I like to add some sort of border, usually a “border print”. Click here to see a video demonstration of how to put a border print frame on a quilt and achieve perfectly mitered corners.
Here are four different border print frames. Two yards is sufficient if using the 10” version of the block. Some borders suit the darker version of the quilt and some the lighter version.
I hope you enjoy playing with these fabrics. Let us know what you choose to do with them.
