What if you don’t have the fabric that you need for a quilt? What do you do? There are only a few choices as far as I can see.
- Look through your stash for the 100th time hoping that somehow it it there even though you know it won’t be.
- Go to the quilt store hoping they have it.
- Look online hoping that what you are seeing on your monitor is what the fabric actually looks like. Of course this is really not a good idea since you don’t have the time to wait for a fabric to be shipped to you anyways.
- Try to dye or paint fabric to create what you need even though you know that that most likely will not work.
- Settle for what you do have in your stash.
I am at that point. My daughter gave me feedback as to what sky looked the best for my global warming quilt in EQ (Electric Quilt) and of course she picked the one with the sky fabric that I do not have. I guess that is one of the dangers of EQ. The fabric looks great in your quilt design, but you don’t have that fabric.
She picked the one with the dark red orange sky. Her only comment was that she was not sure the stacks should be done in frivolous fabrics like dots for such a serious topic. I did not really have dots to work with anyways. But my thoughts were to make the stacks sort of friendly and harmless looking which is in stark contrast to the plumes coming out of them. Maybe I will have to rethink this. The plumes of pollution are the major part of the quilt. The quilt is very long and skinny at 12 in by 29 in.
My daughter said it reminded her of the smoke monster in a movie she watched as a kid called Ferngully. It was an animated film about saving the rain forest. Robin Williams was a voice of one of the characters in the movie. I remember how she was scared of the monster in this film. Of course she was pretty young when she saw it.
So what do I do about the red orange fabric? I guess I will do all 5 of the things above. I guess by the time I get to 5 I will be settling for a red sky which I do have. But I sure wish I had the red orange.
Linking to NIna-Marie.
Thanks for reading and commenting about what you do when you don’t have the fabric you need for a quilt. Should I just settle for the red?
Chris
Personally I like the challenge of working with what I already have - but then I've never used a programme that allowed me to see the ideal version, so I don't know what I'm missing. I can see it's hard to let go if you've found what you feel is the perfect answer. Hope you solve this one to your satisfaction. :-)
ReplyDeleteI would definitely go for no. 4 and try to dye or paint some pieces of cloth .
ReplyDeleteI love the orange sky.
Hmm yes. There were two candidates for being yours. :-)
ReplyDeleteI really like the contrast of the frivolous chimneys and ominous smoke and would suggest keeping it.
As to finding the right fabric. I had the same dilemma last month. I decided to wait and miss the deadline and shop some more. Not always an option. I think I have found it.
For yours, I'm thinking I'd go toward orange more than red if you can' t find the desired red-orange. Good luck!
I'm also thinking one source of series quilts that vary only in color might be just such a dilemma--trying out different possibilities.
Thank you for justifying my impulse buy from hancocks of Paducah this week. Your dilemma illustrates the fact that you can never have to much fabric.
ReplyDeleteI love this piece! Especially the CO2 word. To bad you couldn't put smell in it. We have a paper mill about 3 hours away and the smell from those smokestacks is awful.
If you added a little yellow paint to the red fabric you have, it should do the trick.
Oh, man - you have the options down pat! How about a sixth one: threadpaint or quilt over the red fabric with a yellow or orange thread - supposing of course that your thread stash does not have the same problems as your fabric stash! I am often amazed at how thread color can subtly change the perception of the color of the fabric beneath.
ReplyDeleteSorry to always side with your daughter (lol) but I too have been bothered by the fabric choice in the chimneys. I found it a bit confusing and incongruous. But as always, you have to go with your gut as this is your quilt and your vision.