Hindsight, Low Volume Fabrics and How We Learn
Earlier today I took a photo of this quilt. I pieced the blocks in a workshop almost 5 years ago and finished the quilt a few years ago in Texas. Last night I sewed a hanging sleeve on it and today, I realized I’d never taken a photo of it.
As I looked at it, hanging at the other end of the studio, I thought how a couple of the low volume fabrics could have been better chosen. Today they seem so obviously wrong. How did I miss that? The pattern specified light, light-medium, dark-medium and dark fabrics. I remembered how challenging it was for all of us in the workshop to “see” those values.
In an Art Gallery Management class I took long ago, I remember being told how just LOOKING at lots of art trains the eye and the brain. Today I was thinking that if I made this quilt now, after our adventure in low-volume strings this month, it would be easier and the results would be better.
Live and learn 🙂
I think the quilt is also an example of how you can use low volume fabrics in combination with other fabrics. Instead of using a light background in a single color, you could choose a scrappy, colorful, low volume set of fabrics.
I like those off shades in there. I didn’t really give them thought until I read this. Then they didn’t stand out. So for something “wrong” it still looks right to me. I agree, live and learn.
The two fabrics are “wrong” based on the directions. I confess that I go back and forth thinking I like the spark of having them in there or the quilt really would be better with out it. What I take away from that is in a low-volume quilt or component of a quilt, a couple “wrong” fabrics could give the quilt a little twinkle … too many though and you’d lose the low volume effect.
Pulling this little quilt out again also reminded me that I’m much better at real piped binding than the faux variety 😉