The good folks over at Quokka Quilts are running a fun contest in conjunction with Fat Quarter Shop. Check out the complete details here, but the long and short of it is that you create your own custom fabric bundle to include three solids and twelve prints, then the judges will pick their favorite to win a half yard bundle. I thought it sounded like a good challenge for the eye, and after spending several hours (yep, hours), had my suspicions confirmed. This was hard! What added to the challenge was the sheer volume of choices (Fat Quarter Shop’s inventory is huge). How do you start? Well, here’s what I did…
I started off by opening up a PowerPoint doc and pulling in images for a whole bunch of prints I liked from the shop’s modern fabrics section. That quickly got overwhelming, so I decided to pick a few key focus prints that I loved and knew I would want in the final selection:
From there, in a new slide, I pulled in a bunch of solids to get the overall color scheme/proportions of major colors to accent colors that I was looking for:
What followed was many hours of pulling in additional prints I liked, swapping out different solids and colors to get the appropriate balance of color, scale, value and design. I also made a concerted effort not to include multiple prints from any one given line. I won’t even tell you how many iterations I went through before ending up with my final contest entry. I mean, really, isn’t this enough to make your head spin? It’s like playing Where’s Waldo with fabric!
Those of you who know me in real life will no doubt not be surprised at my final collection. I like to think of it as jewel-y, earthy, with a 70s influence. Which, in my ideal world, is how I like to dress. (Curious? Check out my Pinterest fashion board). Without further ado, here’s my final collection:
- Kona Cotton Hibiscus
- Ruby Cotton Lime Dot
- Dazzle Clementine Shadow Stripe
- Bespoken Aqua Stitchery
- Domestic Bliss Aqua Time For Tea
- Stitch Organic Lagoon on Brown Loop Stripe
- Oval Elements Chocolate Cherry
- Outfoxed Brown Wild Vines
- Power Pop Coffee Confetti
- So Sophie Purple Dot
- Kona Cotton Jade Green
- Pam Kitty Morning Green Plaid
- Sophie Chocolate Houndstooth
- Pure Elements Verve Violet Solid
- Pear Tree Cream and Orange Allover Eggs
There were many other prints that I toyed around with and also liked very much; here are some of the second place prints that came *this close* to making it into the pile:
(edit…2 of the solids made it in after all! Took this shot while the espresso was still in the final running instead of the teal/purple…)
And for good measure, here are the true rejects (still prints I like, just not working with the theme I was going for):
That’s all for today, but expect more posts soon — I have so many fun things to share…crafts, holiday food, the Boston to Austin food swap… Stay tuned!
I love your final picks! I am the same way when I make inspiration mosaics. I always go back and forth, and fiddle with it until it’s just right.
Thanks, Jacey! I must admit, I’m still not 100% convinced on the combination — I could keep fiddling ’til the cows come home 😉
[…] hunt contest was the highlight of my year. In fact, you’ve seen a couple of my contest entries here already. (Did I mention that I won third place in the Sew, Mama, Sew! tablescapes […]