Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Chubby Stars Quilt Along: Fabric Audition

One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. –Oliver Wendell Holmes


Yesterday, I took Grace to the dealer/LQS where I bought her for her tune-up and while I was there, I had to go and stroke the bolts of fabric {you know you do it too}. Guess what I found? An entire bolt of the floral fabric I picked as the focus for my Chubby Stars quilt. I almost swallowed my gum. Guess what else? It had the name of the fabric on it {City Sparkler Roses by Exclusively Quilters}. I picked up the bolt and held it next to some Mellow Yellow Hunky Dory Spots {Chez Moi for Moda}. The light yellow background was the same color as the dark yellow flowers in the Roses fabric. I was in love.

I haven't committed any cash to it yet, because I wanted to see if there were any coordinates to the City Sparklers Roses. My new favorite LQS {was #2, but has just moved to spot #1} didn't seem to have any, so I did a quick Quilt Shops.com search when I got home and hit the jackpot.

What do you think? City Sparkler Roses, Hunky Dory Spots and City Sparkler Bouquets on Red:

And just for fun: City Sparkler Roses, City Sparkler Stylized Floral and City Sparkler Tone-on-Tone Floral:

The tricky thing about on-line shopping is that you never know exactly the scale of the fabrics until they arrive. I'm thinking that the Stylized Floral is probably a bit smaller than it looks in the picture. Just tossing around ideas here.

I briefly considered getting enough of the Roses to complete the snowball blocks. But, I've grown attached to the quirky, somewhat scrappy layout in the last week. I was feeling all proud of myself for making do with what was available. I'm not sure how I feel about more being available :lol:. I'm going to do a border of chain blocks that completes the chains {like this, thanks, Karen, for the inspiration!}, and will probably do a 2" border outside of that with the Roses. I'll probably do the binding in it as well, and am considering getting enough of it for the back.

I've done a good amount of browsing for solids. I've found the perfect pale yellow for the background. It is the lightest shade of yellow, almost ivory. I haven't been able to find a good shade of Khaki grey yet, and I might have to go with black for the star points.

This project has been really stretching my mind lately :spinning:.

5 comments:

Barb said...

Sounds like this venture is stretching you somewhat. Glad you are finding the fabrics that you need and yes...I do stroke the fabric bolts....it is a wonder that the fabric has any print left on it after a day of women stroking them (and men).

Michelle said...

Nothing like having a plan, and then finding more fabric possibilities. LOL! Glad you were able to find the right shade of yellow. Yellows can be tricky, and yet just to look at them one would never guess given all that mellowness they have going on. :-) In any case, I *know* this will be another beauty.

Shay said...

I'm not going to give you an opinion because I am not very good at choosing random fabrics that go well together, which is why I buy whole collections. (and I have just realised I do that ...)

Whatever you decide it will be beautiful because all of your creations are.

Paulette said...

I really like the first layout above. Something about the yellow with the red just sings.

Wanda said...

I like both of those layouts but my favorite is the second one. But I know it will be wonderful no matter which you choose! So fun to see you put this together!