Sunrise Quilt Studio

In order to have the quilt finish at 15 inches wide, I had to add more width to the center of the quilt. I sliced  the middle section and added another pieced of fabric. This one is a shade which turned out to be an olive green. I also added another border to the top and bottom of the quilt top. The next step is thread painting.

I finished piecing the background this evening on the Yellow Rose quilt. So far I am please with the way it is progressing. I am still contemplating some changes to the rose, so I haven't fused it down. 

I worked on the background for the Yellow Rose a bit more this morning. The left lower petal was blending into the background too much. The problem with monochromatic quilts is getting enough contrast so you don't lose your design. I cut out a section of the the left side of the background and replaced it with another piece of fabric. This is a shade that is several steps lighter than the shade in this sample below. I want the quilt to read "yellow" and the darker shade put too much olive green in the quilt. Although I like the look, I don't think it works with the guidelines of this quilt challenge.

This yellow rose applique is to be part of the Color Quilt Project that "Fancy Threads" is creating. The color I have chosen for my quilt is yellow. We are to use any tints, tones, and shades of our color to put into a 15x30" quilt. We are also able to use small amounts of other colors in our quilts. I am trying out different backgrounds for the rose. The rose will be the center of the quilt. I have another design worked out for the sections above and below the rose which I will post later as they are completed. The photo above uses a pure yellow in the center with a shade on the right and a tone on the right. This background uses a tint on the left of the pure yellow that is in the center with the same tone on the right as the photo above. .

I'm not sure why, but lately I have had problems choosing fabric colors for my quilts. Perhaps it is because I have been too busy to work on my own quilts and am out of practice. It may also be that I have been studying color theory and realizing that there is a lot more to choosing colors than I had previously known. Going by instinct can work, but I think I have been over-thinking my choices the past few months. Finishing the Blue Lily quilt has been difficult. I think I have made my final fabric choices, pin the quilt on my design wall, and after looking at it for a few days I realize I don't like it.   The orange pieced background above was my first choice. I thought using complementary colors would be a great choice. But this background overpowers the lily appliques. I also learned that orange isn't the complement of blue on the Ives color wheel, but that orange-yellow was the complement. I didn't like orange-yellow, though. It was also too strong. ...

I hand-dyed some yellow tones a few days ago. They are the 3 fabrics on the left. Since I didn't have any gray dye, I used the complement of yellow which is violet. The photo doesn't show the tones in their true color. They are actually a mustard color. I think I now have a wide enough range of yellows to use in my color quilt. The tubs below are what I used to dye my fabrics in. The tub on the right is a pale yellow. It's the 4th fabric on the left. The yellow dye is very strong and I wanted a very pale yellow. I may still need to dilute the yellow even further to get a paler yellow. I'll have a better idea when I start auditioning the fabrics together in the quilt design.

Here are the results of my hand-dyed yellow fabrics. The 5th fabric from the left in the lower section of fabric is the pure yellow color. To the left of that are the diluted yellows and to the right are the shades of yellow. What a difference from the commercial yellow fabrics that I pulled! Those run too much to the yellow-orange range for my project. I'm so glad I decided to dye some fabric to see what the difference would be. Next I'll try dyeing some tones of yellow and see what I get. Then I'll start playing around with a design for the quilt.