October 31, 2015

Getting back into the studio: A crayon quilt

I'm easing myself back into the studio, playing with scraps of color for a baby quilt.  I'm working from this pattern from American Patchwork & Quilting.  Who wouldn't like a reminder of the pleasure of a new box of crayons?

American Patchwork & Quilting, Supplement to an issue sometime in the last year--sorry, no date given on the pages

The pattern calls for piecing together 2.5" strips of assorted fabrics, but I wanted to use the variety in my scraps, some of which weren't that wide.  I think the results look fine.  I kept the crayons the size in the pattern (cut at 5" x 40", plus the crayon tip cut at 5"), but made just six and turned them vertical, to make a smaller quilt.  I haven't sewn the crayons together yet.  Here they are in rainbow order:



 Not sure I like the red and orange next to each other.  Here I've moved the red over to the right side:


But I think I like it even better this way:  primaries (red/yellow/blue) on the left and secondaries (orange, green, purple) on the right: 


When I put the photo of the pattern at the top of this post, I realized it has the crayons arranged with half the points up and half down:


Not sure which I like better.  With all the points up, it reminds me more of a box of crayons, but I also like the balance of the alternating forms.  Comments on color order and point arrangements welcome!

I don't often make a quilt totally from scraps.  It was a pleasure to handle scores of different fabrics, remembering favorite projects, or wondering how I happened to have a particular fabric at all.  Also very nice to not have to buy or dye any fabric, but just dive in.  

1 comment:

  1. What a fun design! With the slimline, portrait orientation, I like primary/secondaries all facing the same direction :-)

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