Godstone Grannies - the top is together

The last sections of hexagons for my Godstone Grannies (GG) quilt top are stitched together! I'm going to drag this out just a little bit! Silvana left a comment on my last post and she asked how I combined the colours so I thought I would share some of the things I do or think about when I make a scrap quilt.

• I don't spend a lot of time thinking about fabric choices. I try to work quickly. If I like something I will go with it and if I'm not sure I will either set it aside and think about it or discard the combination right way.
• I like to play with my fabric. I will put oodles of fabrics on a big table. I move them around and sometimes I’ll see a colour or print combination that really works and it is often a combination that I wouldn't have thought about. 
• I try to use fabrics that are the same style. For example I wouldn’t combine children’s prints with Civil War prints.
• I think about the "tone" of my quilt. I am fond of muddy or earthy tones. A little bit of bright thrown in with earthy or muddy tones will make a quilt sparkle but a lot of brights will mute the effect of the earthy tones/muddy tones. If I want a bright quilt then a little bit of muddy colours will make the brights really shine. If I use equal amounts it just doesn't work because neither stands out.
• I think about what the overall colour of my quilt will be. The more of that colour I use the more likely the quilt will read that colour even though other colours are used.
• I don’t match fabrics when I am buying. I just buy fabrics that I like; I figure that my tastes don't really change so the new fabric will probably work with what I've already got in my stash.
• Colour is important but value is more important. Value is the lightness or darkness of a fabric when compared to another fabric. I try to make sure that there are lights, mediums and darks in most blocks. The eye sees value first and colour second.
• When I make a scrap quilt I try to repeat some of fabrics in more than one block. This makes the quilt look more cohesive. In this way I don't have to worry that each fabric goes with all of the others. As long as some of them are repeated they will all work together!  
• Using a single fabric for the path in a hexagon quilt will separate the blocks and it also makes the quilt look more polished because it is a fabric that flows throughout the quilt.
• I like to make little 3” nine patches with my scraps. It is a great way to learn about colour and value. When I do this I think of colour combinations I would never have considered. If the block doesn’t look beautiful it will still work in a quilt because it is small but if it works, I have a good idea for combining colours for another quilt! If the block looks really bad I can take it apart and make something different or I can just throw it out!

The lecture is over so it is back to my GG quilt top! In this picture you can see that I've attached the lower right corner to the center strip. Looking good!

The last step was to attach the upper left corner....just one long seam and GG would be a hexagon quilt top! I am so pleased with how this quilt has turned out. The path fabric appears grey but in fact it is a very dull, faded pale peach.

The final step is to add narrow border strips around the quilt top. If I were to just place border strips on the quilt with the right sides together and stitch the border to the quilt top by machine I would have to cut through the hexagons at the edges and that would change the look of my partial diamonds, many of which were fussy cut for effect. I don't want to do that so I am going to add a narrow border to give the quilt straight edges. My plan is to applique the quilt to the borders. I want to do it this way for three reasons:

• I do not want to cut through my hexagons,
• a narrow border will make quilting the hexagons at the edge easier (it gives me something to hold when I quilt) and
• I want flat, smooth, straight edges to make it easier to attach the binding when the quilting is done.

I'll explain how I'll  attache the border in an upcoming post!

Until I post again, happy sewing!
Karen H