Sunday, August 17, 2008

The jury's still out

Thank you for all the input on borders for my Sunflower Quilt. I'm still thinking, but at least there's an elimination-process going on in my mind... I tried the polka-dot, Tine, but with all the other things going on in the blocks, it just made me dizzy, so that's out. The green is out too, because it seems to throw a greenish hue onto all the other colours, and that slightly sea-sick look is not the one I'm going for. The darkest blue (which I thought was a safe bet...) seems too harsh, and the light yellow too bland. So we're down to dark turquoise (#3), red (#5 or 6) or a warm yellow (#8). Most of you seem to favour the slightly faded red with the scroll-pattern, and while I have enough of that one for the borders, I don't think that's the actual fabric I will go for. The picture shows only part of it, so you don't see that the background has areas of purple in it, and that doesn't go well with anything at all in this quilt, I think. You can see the beginning of such an area at the bottom of this picture.
But I could definitely go for a red border, I just have to find the actual fabric. The warm yellow is a Fossil Fern which really warms the rest of the colours up a bit, so I am leaning slightly towards that one (and I know where I can get more of that particular fabric, which helps...).
I had a friend over on Friday for a "Sew-In" - in protest to her husband's preoccupation with the Olympics, she brought her sewing machine and we spent the day sewing happily away in my kitchen. We had a lovely time, and a very nice salad for lunch (beef, pears and walnuts among other things...) and we had a look at my quilt. She stated that the red was too obvious a choice for the border, and favoured the warm yellow one, but she also thought I should use the dark turquoise for binding, and that's not going to happen! So, different opinions all around, and the final choice will be mine, but I'm leaving it for a couple of days - I still have some work to do on my Olympic Quilt, and at least I know where I'm going with that one :-)

They must be in the midst of wrapping up at The Festival of Quilts in Birmingham now, and I see the photos are beginning to appear in Flickr, so let's get some inspiration there. I'm sorry to have missed it this year, but I'm definitely going next year!

1 comment :

Tine said...

I see how the red doesn't work with the purple tones.... Ugh...not good at all! The warm yellow looks really good too.... It brings out the sunflowers beautifully. Maybe with the red as binding?

see....I just really like that red fabric. LOL!!