Big Janome Skill Share - Part 2 & 3
Fabric choice and what the quilt will look like!
Hi, Claire here, the one teaching Zoe (my student) how to make a quilt for the Big Janome Skill Share. The prompt for part 2 of the Big Janome Skill Share is ‘Fabric Choice’. This for me is probably one of my favourite parts of the process for any quilt. I can get lost for hours scrolling through hundreds of fabrics on-line. It is a total kid in a candy store moment for me. But I also know it can be a mind-field and completely overwhelming! Where do you start?
We knew we were using my Retro Metro Quilt pattern, so it was a pattern I was very familiar with, but the colour and over all feel of the quilt had to resonate with Zoe. We chatted over it all on a zoom call and came up with some great ideas.
over to zoe to fill you in on the ideas:
My reason for sewing (if not THE reason) is so closely linked to my Mum and her desire for me to learn to sew, so I wanted this quilt to reflect memories of our special mother daughter relationship. I had decided that I primarily wanted to choose fabrics that were reflective of my childhood, growing up in Switzerland. Although I was only 12 when we moved to the UK, so many of my beautiful memories with my Mum are from our time living abroad.
Mood board of all the ideas discussed for the colour palette patterns for prints.
Claire:
So the search was on! We had the ideas but we now needed to find the perfect fabrics to match them. Screen shots of fabrics were sent back and forth through the power of WhatsApp. Zoe ordered the fabric that she loved and came up with these five combinations;
Zoe:
Claire helped guide me in my decisions, after all this is her pattern, and she certainly has an eye for matching the best fabrics. She produced some examples via her quilting design tool, so that we could clearly see what the fabric pull would look like once in situ. My favourite fabric had sold out and Claire came to the rescue having searched high and low for it, she found it online for me!
The final five fabrics!
My five fabric choices for this pattern are:
Robert Kaufman – Kona Snow – This beautiful white fabric has an apt name reflective of the snowy days in Switzerland. Snow was a huge part of our lives living there.
Rifle Paper Co - Champagne Periwinkle – This was my 100% must have fabric. I adore the colour and I know my Mum would love this colour too. The last plant she bought me, was a blue hydrangea –the bluey purple petals are so similar in colour to this fabric.
Rifle Paper Co - Hawthorne Periwinkle – I was drawn to the delicate wildflowers in this fabric design. My Mum was a keen gardener, and the garden was always brimming with colour. These flowers also reminded me of the beautiful Alpine flowers in the mountains where we lived.
Rifle Paper Co - Tapestry Lace Navy – To me this design reminded me of the long dark winters, when the snow is finally melting, and the spring flowers slowly start to emerge. The relief that soon the days will get longer and brighter with springs arrival.
Bonnie Christine – Terrain Unmarked – This fabric was more of an anomaly. I loved the modern geometric feel. I can’t really explain why, but there is something very special about this pattern, which reminds me of my Mum and therefore I had to select it for this quilt.
Claire:
One of the ways I helped Zoe to visualise the fabrics in the quilt was to use an on-line App I use for part of my pattern designing called PreQuilt. This ties in really nicely for the third prompt from the Big Janome Skill Share Team - ‘What will the quilt look like?’
I already had my Retro Metro Quilt pattern designed on the PreQuilt site in my account so swapping around colours and best of all, fabric prints was easy and a great way to get an idea how they would look!
Below are the images saved from PreQuilt which I sent over to Zoe so she could decide which fabrics to use.
Zoe:
Claire’s Retro Metro quilt pattern is what originally drew me to attempt to make a quilt. I love the pattern and Claire is so talented to have designed it (along with many other patterns). If my quilt ends up turning out anything like the intricate beauties that she sews then I’ll be happy.
So far, I am only at the fabric cutting stage and I’m probably being overly cautious with my measurements – but I’m hoping this will pay off and will help with the symmetrical element of the quilt.
I love the fact that this pattern uses straight lines and has a clean cut design to it. Probably a side to my perfectionism coming out. I can already see myself getting frustrated when I don’t get things right. I’m hoping my quilt reflects the sentimental reasons for my sewing. I’ve spoken briefly to Claire about potentially adding in some finer details – hand stitching, or adding in some smaller pieces of fabrics that again are reflective of my Mum. This is something that I’ll think in more detail about once I can see the quilt coming together over the next few weeks.
The final five fabrics and how they will look in the pattern!
So we got there! We got the final five fabrics and how they will look on the final pattern - next comes all the cutting and then the sewing! It’s so exciting to see it all come together.
Thank you for reading, until next time,
