Happy Friday! As you can imagine, color is everywhere in my studio…bolts of fabric, my color coded stash, quilts in progress, thread, paperweights on the window sill and hanging colorful art. I love color, and picking out colors for a quilt is one of my favorite parts of the process. I can see a quilt coming together in my head when I am picking our fabric, and my ability to see the quilt in my mind’s eye is very helpful because clients cannot always see the possibilities in their heads. So you may ask: How do I choose?
I am fond of saying to clients that really any fabric will work as long as the parts are coordinated. The parts I am talking about are the sashing (if you have it), the fabric around each shirt piece, the cornerstones for classic quilts, which often match the outer border, the inner border, which matches the sashing, the outer border fabric, the back, and the binding. We can get away with two fabric choices, or we can go all out and have four or five! But what is most important to remember is that most t-shirt quilts have an eclectic color pallet amongst the shirts and the colors may vary dramatically. Plus there are colors in the graphics, too. You may feel overwhelmed with choices, but you can choose almost any fabrics to go with those shirts!
An NCSU themed quilt with NCSU shirts. Black sashing and inner border are sharp with the NCSU fabric in the outer border and corner stones. The black binding helps hold it all together.
The fabric…sashing, borders, binding…are what will bring all of those possibly disparate t-shirts together. Of course if we have a themed quilt, college shirts, favorite team, or organizational shirts, then we can pull fabrics to match the theme. NCSU fabric (Yay for NCSU for licensing fabric this year!), along with black, red, and gray solids to create that NCSU theme.
Even variations on one color can create a beautiful quilt, like in this teal colored quilt. The sashing and inner border are a light teal/green, and the outer border is a lovely darker teal blender. The back is a medium teal blender. The Navy binding adds a nice dark border to this quilt.
For those t-shirt and memory quilts that have eclectic shirts/clothing, I start with favorites: colors, teams, college, and then I move on to the room in which the quilt will live and the usage of the quilt. In quilting we tend to think dark to light, so we often use light to medium sashing colors to darker outer border and binding. The back can honestly be anything as long as it coordinates with the binding! However, no rules are set in stone. We can use the same color for the sashing, inner border, and outer border and have a middle border. Or we can use dark sashing with a large print outer border. I do recommend a solid or blender fabric for the sashing and inner borders, so that the fabric does not compete with the shirts. A blender fabric is a fabric with a small print or movement, like a marble effect, that reads more like a solid when you see it at a distance.
An example of that middle border idea. Black sashing, inner border, and outer border with a pink middle border creates a wonderful quilt. And the pop of pink in the binding adds to this dramatic, but simple colors scheme!
I am also open to great suggestions for quilt colors, too, because the possibilities are endless, and when presented with a color combination, I can tell you if it will work or not. Remember I can see the quilt in my head! I had a client who wanted his Hard Rock Cafe shirts made into a quilt, and he picked out the most vibrant fabrics to go in his quilt…fabrics I would not have immediately chosen myself…but his ideas were fabulous, and so is his quilt!
The Hard Rock Cafe Quilt in all of its gorgeous glory! And it has a brilliant paint splashed fabric back, too! I love how the colorful graphic fabric captures and highlights the brilliance of the graphics in the shirts. I used the tiny Hard Rock Cafe logos from the front of the shirts for the cornerstones, too!
Don’t be afraid of color…your quilt should reflect what you love and your memories, and you should love it when it is finished. If you have old t-shirts or clothing languishing in a drawer, then just imagine what they can become!
Have a brilliant week,
Ginger
Reading Now: I am nearly finished with East of Eden, and I am about halfway through The Trembling Hand…that book makes me so angry and sad, and it calls into question my steadfast belief that reading and knowledge can give people empathy…I still believe that, but an open mind and a willingness to let go of one’s fears are necessary, too. I am learning a lot, though, about Coleridge and Wordsworth and the slave trade. How do they write such beautiful pieces and have so much prejudice and hate in their hearts? All of it shocks me. Unfortunately so many of their ideas about the slave trade mirrors arguments I hear today about immigration, native rights, and racism. Right won out then. I can hope for the same today and vote appropriately. I will need a cozy mystery next, I think…or a Victorian novel. Luckily, I have lots of options.
NPR is an excellent unbiased news source. Please always choose to be kind.
