Oh look, it's a quilt!

[mellicious]

I was reading today about how the Color of the Year is Greenery. (I wrote a nail blog post for this earlier with a lot more information - look for that tomorrow night, but I can't link to it directly til then.) "Greenery" is sort of a spring green, not-quite-lime color - it's not a color that I would wear, really, because I don't think it would be flattering on me - but it's a color I like. And then that made me think of this quilt.

Some of y'all who have known me for years have seen this quilt before, probably many times, but honestly I hadn't taken a good look at it in ages, it seems like. It's physically in my dining room right now but it's kind of shoved back in the corner and I tend to forget it's there!

I put this quilt together using blocks from a swap. I love the colors in this, but if I had made all the blocks for it back then - it was more than 10 years ago - I would never have used these colors. And it's the greens I'm talking about, not the purples. Apparently I was afraid of lime greens back them. If you look you can see that a couple of the blocks are quite bright, and I remember getting these back and wondering what I was going to do with them. I finally came up with a layout that went from palest at the top left and worked down and to the right to the brighter and then a few in the bottom corner that were a bit darker. Purple and green used to be a fairly unusual color combination but I don't think that's as true as it used to be. On a color-wheel, they're two-thirds of a triad, meaning they're one-third of the wheel apart from each other. I think maybe it makes more sense to say that what they have in common is blue, because purple is blue + red and green is blue + yellow, right? Anyway, I wasn't looking at a color wheel or any of this when I came up with this combination, I just decided they looked pretty together. This quilt was finished before I ever looked at a color wheel and figured out why that was.

For those interested in the pattern, this was a commercial pattern called "Faceted Jewels" and if you google that name you'll come up with a bunch of multicolored versions of this pattern (plus a really nice red & white version that I've never seen before) - the multi version was the way it was done in the original pattern. I called mine "Faceted Amethysts" since I used purples for the "gem" sections. It's basically a variation on some standard blocks, though. It's two very standard quilt blocks that alternate. It doesn't have any curves in it although it gives an illusion of curves. One of the blocks is usually called "54-40 or Fight" but the way the colors are arranged in that block is not the standard way, so it looks different. And the other block is just a combination of a square in a square and flying geese (the triangles are the geese, see). I can't remember offhand if that block has a particular name.

(Oh, wow, look at the very tiny version of this pattern in this post.)

Comments

[bunny42.livejournal.com]

What a gorgeous quilt! I love the combination of purple and green. I have a ring featuring amethysts and emeralds. I need to find that and wear it some more!

What color is the reverse side of the quilt? I can't tell from the picture, but does it have a black border?

[mellificent.livejournal.com]

I just went and looked at the actual quilt, because I didn't remember. Both the back and binding and the border of the quilt alternate between greens and purples - the border is very dark greens and purples and so is the binding - it alternates every time there's a seam, maybe every couple of feet - and the blocks on the back are just whatever I had, I think. I've never seen the point of using just one fabric for a quilt back. I usually piece mine but I usually use very large pieces or big blocks or sometimes I use up some scraps. (Maybe I'll do a post on this later if I find enough pictures.)

(Oh - I just realized that the black you're seeing is the background - like, black fabric hung behind the quilt. That's pretty standard at quilt shows.)

[bunny42.livejournal.com]

I've only ever made one patchwork quilt, with scraps from all the fabrics my mother used over the years to make clothing for herself, my brother and me. I made rows and rows of squares, then sewed them together on the sewing machine. I used a flannel backing and "quilted" the batting inside with long diagonal rows of stitches, also machine-done. It would never have occurred to me to use more scraps for the back. I've never been to a quilt show, so I was pretty much flying blind. My mom appreciated the effort, and we sat on the floor together and identified all the different fabrics and what she had made with them. My hand-sewing skills are pretty crummy, but the sewing machine did the trick.

I'll use your idea of big blocks of whatever I have leftover to make the reverse side of my next quilt, whenever that may be. And I'll try to attend a show. That will either motivate me or discourage me entirely from making another quilt.

[mellificent.livejournal.com]

I started going to shows with my mom long before I ever made a quilt. I think it did serve as an education of sorts - I'd sit there and puzzle out how things were put together and stuff like that.

I did go poke around and look for pictures of my quilt backs, and I found a few. Not the purple one, but then I do have this quilt nearby so I can try to get a decent picture of that. I haven't made a quilt in a while, myself, but I still like talking about this stuff.