Saturday, December 7, 2013

Baby quilts--cutting

I spent a lot of our long holiday weekend getting the baby quilts going. The previous Sunday, I visited my sister with one of the quilt square fabric pieces and she showed me how to cut it. During the week I looked at the rulers and cutting mats I have, many of which were mom's.

So, on Friday I set up to cut the squares--in the bathroom of all places. Our kitchen, where I usually do things like this, was in disarray to make room for plumbers to get their machinery into the basement. They were to show up at 9:00 a.m. When they didn't show at 9:00, nor for the later appointment date, set up when they didn't arrive by 10:00, hubby called in an alternative plumber who kindly came by after 4:00 p.m.--meaning the kitchen was unusable all day. The bathroom has the best light in the house (a diffuse north window) and is the most out of the way place I could set up the ironing board with the cutting board on top. It actually worked out very well and I got all of the quilt squares cut.
One thing we noticed when we began laying out the squares, is that the green, which in this photo matches the background green in the print (taken in incandescent light), stood out as dull and intrusive in daylight.  It looked awful with the other colors so we pulled it from the mix.  The green in the print is actually much more of a lime color...quite bright. That's the kind of thing you really can't tell (at least I often can't) until I'm putting the colors together in patterns.
And here we are on Saturday, at our Thanksgiving gathering, laying out the pieces into patterns on my sister's carpet.  Kim, Nan, and I laid the pieces out and Hannah commented from her spot on the bed (and took pictures for us).  Getting us down on the floor isn't bad. Getting back up is a whole 'nother thing (not pretty).

I think it's interesting that in this picture, too, the green in the print looks very much like the pile of green squares set to the side by Nan's foot.  It did not look at all that way in person. Luckily, I had plenty of squares of fabric to make the quilts without the green.

1 comment:

Jenny Woolf said...

Lovely to see the quilts taking shape! and nice to imagine them being done by your family. It is very true that some colours and fabrics look entirely wrong in certain lights. As well you discovered that before you'd made them.