Tuesday, April 10, 2012

color,color, color!


Storage:
Scraps and Folded Fabrics 

Someone kindly asked yesterday about how I store my scraps, and how do I work from my scraps when I make fabric. I have so many hugs buns of scraps, I do not color cordinate them at all.

That being said, I have 5 bins of assorted scraps, and I have ONE bin purely for REDS.
So I guess my earlier statement is not 100% accurate. But really, you can see that I do have reds in all the bins. But I do TRY to keep my reds in one bin, being RED is my favorite color to add to quilts...


I find that separating them all by color doesn't help me in my discovery process of finding colors that look great together!  Letting them all live together in a big happy mess of a bin, is part of the funjourney a quilt takes us on.  I find it hard to do SCRAPPY any other way. Sometimes I am gabbing blindly, or without thought about what colors I am pulling and sometimes I pull colors with intention.

I may have a set few colors in a quilt, Like RED YELLOW and ROYAL BLUE, but it wills till include ORANGE, PINK, GREEN PURPLE and everything else in between.  It dependson what your over all concept of the quilt needs to READ. I mentioned on Pat's show yesterday that often I will have ten colors in a quilt, you can use all of the colors, and still it will have a dominate color palette.


As for my FOLDED fabrics that have not yet been cut to bits... 
I do organize them by color. from light to darks in one bin of each color. 
REDS, BLUES, YELLOWS, GREENS, GRAYS, BROWN, BLACK, WHITES, SOLIDS, NOVELTY, HOME DEC, BATIKS, AFRICAN, HAND DYES etc etc.... And I will often grab from here a fabric I definitely want to include in a quilt. I slice off a chunk, cut it up to bits and throw it into my scrap bins. Most of my work come from my scrap bins and not the fabric on my shelves.

Color is an interesting thing. It's easy to get intimidated by it, but at the same time, 
It can be the most easy and relaxing thing in the world.  
"Color Baggage." The negative thoughts we attach the colors we don't like... This can limit ourselves to certain spectrum's... OPEN your thinking to all color, The world is a colorful place!
Let it all go, sew it all together, experiment... PLAY and find your JOY in color!








11 comments:

  1. You've got quite a stash going... But then if you're professionally quilting, you need one. I like your philosophy of serendipity when pulling scraps out of the bin. sometimes pulling what you initially think is the wrong color ends up being totally right!

    I have a collapsible laundry basket going right now, but I'll be switching things up a bit. I got some ice cream buckets from a trip to a regional dairy, and will use the laundry basket for batting scraps.

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  2. Seriously, is your stash that tidy all the time? The only way mine would look like that for more than a day is If I organized it and glued tight the door...

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  3. My folded fabrics , yes, are always neat and tidy... If I can't see or find it,it doesn't get used...

    the rest of my studio is often a mess! When things come off the shelves, they going to a pile "to be folded..." that PILE gets pretty big sometimes!

    When things are folded, they get put back into the shelves so it all stays nice...

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  4. Hm-mmmm ... I'm not seeing any "Menopausal Mauve" Baggage in your cubbies. Enjoyed your chat with Pat yesterday!

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  5. HAHAHAH! "Menopausal Mauve" Very very little... I actually found a bunch at my house in the VERY UGLY FABRIC BIN.... I do have more, but not a cubby full!

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  6. I recognize those bins.. I dug around in them to make my "Happy"!

    LOVED having you on the show.. you must come back!

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  7. I think you are absolutely right about your scraps. I organized mine by color and they just kind of died in the bins for me. Will borrow 4 year old nephew to help mess them up again... Looking forward to hearing the podcast of your talk!

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  8. oooooh, I'd love to mess around in those scrap bins! I'm with you -- shove them in and then play with whatever I find.

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  9. Gosh, now that's what I call a stash! and lovely boxes of scraps to delve into - what fun. Linda

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  10. A quilt without red is like a day without sun!! :)

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  11. Loved listening to you on Pat's show. Thank you so much for talking, and sharing how you use your fabrics!! I find you to be very inspiring!

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