As soon as I saw the quilt and had to make a decision on how I was to make It I new I had to make it dramatic using blacks as my backgrounds…so scrappy blacks and then I thought…ok…lets go with black and cream/tan….that will make a neutral quilt that everyone will love, especially men…whom I am surrounded by in my life. So black and tan it is….the directions stated I needed 20 backgrounds or light per pattern…It was pretty easy to pick them…I chose mainly smaller prints and a few medium size prints…all black with shades of cream/tan/brown accents to them…See the 2 photos of the 10 blacks each…
Now in the second photo…do you see the second black that had the gold? I love this print…so guess what happened, just like that…we are going to have black/cream/butterscotch because…that will make it much more interesting!!! Now off to pull the creams and butterscotches. Did you notice? I picked 21 of each of everything…did you count them before i mentioned this?….Here is some of my advice…If you buy a kit and it has many fabrics like this one….I suggest adding 1 or two more of your own fabrics to it. Why? A couple of reasons…First-You have now made the quilt a one of a kind…not the same as the 100 other kits that were made… you have added your personal fabric to it. Now it is unique. Second, reason to add…lets just say the fabric requirements were not exactly perfect or were very tight and had no room for error…I know you never make a cutting error…but now by adding a fabric or two you have eliminated that issue also. To me it is a NO BRAINER to add extra fabric to your kit. If you do not have any that work…oh darn, you might have to SHOP for another FQ (or 1/2yd my preference)…bummer huh…This is just a suggestion…not a must…but it’s what I would do…so I have 21 blacks/tans/butterscotch instead of 20, also keep in mind you might want to collect 1/2yd from now on…they are much more versatile… like for this quilt if I had a FQ stash it I would have had to go shopping..if I needed FQ’s I could cut the half yards in half…and so on…This is why we sell 1/2 yds in our booths…I know I get a few who want FQ’s but hopefully I can change the world…yah right!!!!
I will end up with 21 blocks…but it can go in the sampler quilt with all the other orphan blocks I have made…if it gets made, which it usually does…so NOW all my fabrics are picked…now whats next?
Saturate each fabric with Magic Sizing..it can be this one here or the heavy…I buy whatever is on the shelf and all of it…You also can use your homemade starch if you wish…I use the sizing because it does not flake or build up on my iron. Spray it generously, let it sit and soak in a minute and then Iron it dry with your iron. This is really a pain…but SO worth it when piecing little pieces. This shrinks you fabrics NOW instead of when you are building your blocks…I have lots of different brands of fabric here-meaning some will shrink more than others. It is amazing to see how some of them will shrink right before your eyes when you saturate them. I have shown the two pics…see how wet it is and then I am ironing them dry. Now I am all sized up and ready to cut!….come back for some cutting….Stitch On…LB
