Seeking a point of Difference

All my life I have watched trends. You know, the fashionable items that we all have to have.  From shirts to shoes, watches to cockoo clocks, furniture to cars, cigarettes to quinoa... we all get led by the nose to refresh our acquisitions.  I remember overhearing my mom talking with a friend in the 1970's.  She was saying that bell bottom pants were going out of style, "Thank Goodness," she said.  I silently left the room and cried.  I loved my bellbottoms and couldn't bear the thought that due to an influence out of my control they would no longer be available. I decided then and there that I would keep mine and wear them even if they weren't in fashion!  Of course I eventually moved on to other fashions but that feeling that I would hold onto what I liked stuck.

  Fashion changes our eye and this happens in patchwork as well.  We see the new fabric, we must have it, we must Make!  It is before our eyes, enticing us and then...it is gone. This constant refreshing of newness might mean that some valuable fabrics get left behind because they are slightly different or because some fabrics just don't look good on the shelf.  For example,these Kaffe Folk Art flowers.  On bolts in a bay of fabrics they don't stand out. But when they are pulled out and mixed up with fabrics they really enable other fabrics to work together.  They give just the right amount of pallet stimulation needed to get the stash working brilliantly.

The background colour is available in black, hot pink, french blue, lime green, white and red...all gorgeous.  It is what I think of as a sleeper as the potential is there but slow to wake up.  Then Carolyn did this...

and Judy did this...

and I am working on this one...

It is a fabric that we are really enjoying as a stash stimulator.  It just keeps bringing bits together.  The other hotter than hot fabric that we are loving at the  moment is the Marquee stripe.  Thing is, I have always loved stripes.  There is an urban myth that they are hard to cut but really, what is easier?  Cut along or cut across a stripe and It just works brilliantly in so many ways.

 

We go to great pains to make string quilts. 
Cutting and cutting, sewing and sewing...all to give the effect of string piecing. Then along comes Marquee Stripe and the work is done for us.  The stripe gives us a colour pallet that works and the visual, graphic excitement to make our quilts come to life.  Those stripe blocks are all from the same fabric!  I tell you this but I hate to as it should be kept a secret so that we can use it all up without sharing.  Ugh.  I hate that I can't keep a secret. times up. k

 

Comments

[Lisa]

Beautiful fabrics! Can't wait to get my hands on them. Thanks for the peek.

[Uggs Clearance]

Wow! Great article.and I think many people will like your blog and writing their ideas.your suggest very usefully.i hope your information will take us better lives.thank you for your article.

[Maureen from Ventura]

Those fabrics are fabulous!!

[Sharyn B]

Those fabrics are amazing! I want some! Need to go shopping immediately !!!LOL

[LeeAnn]

"Stash stimulator"--brilliant! And I love those stripes cut cockeyed.

[Cardygirl]

Love the use of the KF panels...mine is much simpler, so I love seeing what others have created.

[Meg]

Great post on the Kaffe panels! I got them in a bundle of fat quarters -- and I didn't even recognize what they were until I pulled one out to see if it had any fussy cutting potential. I immediately pulled them all aside; I don't know what they'll end up being, but fantastic thought starters here. On another note -- I've nearly got the first Sue Ross finished! My strip pieced triangles have turned out beautifully, but (sorry) I never liked the appliqué and I just couldn't get past it. I'm working on a last block to take it's place. I sure wish Kim Bradley could quilt it -- I'm not sure who I'll trust to do it!!
Hope everything is great w/you, xo Meg

[Elizabeth E.]

Excellent thoughts and excellent post. I passed around your blog name again yesterday, as I was perusing a fabric shop's Kaffe collections--citing your love of combining fabrics in new and unusual ways. This post proves it!

thanks,one more time!

[Barbara Craxton]

Fabulous.
Quilting on hold.
Rugby fever takes a firm grip on household.
3 Springboks/1Rhodesian born
1 Scot /all now Canadian citizens.
Household gone mad..

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