"Inspired By" is How I Roll

I read one of my old blog posts titled "How to Get Out of a Creative Funk". Nothing like having your 2011 self give your today self a wake-up call. After the events of the last couple years I'm just plain tired, and frankly, depressed. If you're struggling with depression, this blog post was a good read. I tried to reconnect with the project I was involved with this past spring before my mom died and I was overwhelmed by it. So I decided to take my own advice from the 2011 post and do something different for a while. I decided to make some small sized quilts inspired by antique quilts.

"Inspired by" is how I roll. Rather than try to recreate an antique quilt exactly, I want to use it as a springboard. I won't try and match fabrics exactly. I chose two Four Patch quilts as my inspiration. It's amazing how the simple patterns can have such variation by playing around with the contrast of color and value between the four patch blocks and the alternating whole blocks. 

I found this quilt on Pinterest.  It's a Four Patch quilt, and leads to a page not found on the Rocky Mountain Quilts site. This quilt has a less organized color scheme than the quilt pink quilt below, but is fun to study the placement of blocks. 

Also through the power of Pinterest, the image of the quilt below led me to the International Quilt Museum site, where you can search their archives for quilts of particular patterns. What fun! I wasn't able to find the link for this quilt, but you can visit the International Quilt Museum by clicking the image. 

Using the pink quilt as an inspiration, I decided to try different colors for the larger solid blocks and the frame around the four patch section. 

The blue blocks are kind of pretty instead of the pink. The darker value of the blue block activates the lighter colors in the four patch squares. Not sure of the brown border, it kind of kills it. Maybe just finishe it with a narrow pinkish-red band and eliminate the larger border? 


The blue border is definitely better, 
but now the center section is kind of overwhelmed by all the blue. 


What a difference this drab color makes. So much calmer in feel. 


I also want to make a Half Square Triangle quilt.

I bet that would be a fun search on the IQM site. 


1 comment:

Daisy Debs said...

I think the one with the blue border will be fine when you bind the edge with the lovely maroon/red cotton . It will then bring out the maroon /red in the small squares . Fun isn't it ? ! :)


"Do not let what you cannot do
keep you from doing what you can do."

John Wooden