Plain or print?

Whenever I am working on a quilt with lots and lots of prints and colours, I always seem to be planning a quilt using plains or solid fabrics in my head. I'm not sure why - maybe it's like when you eat something really sweet, and you need something salty to counteract it...

I made a very improvisationally pieced strip quilt last Christmas to give to friends. And I intended that it would be the first in a series of these, but I haven't gotten back to it yet. This series would be the "Baustelle" series - a play on words with Bauhaus and the geometric shapes and solid colours of that style, but also representing that these are a bit of a building work in progress. Baustelle is a construction site in German, and I liked the idea that some of the bright coloured strips may run into the white/cream strips when the quilt was washed. So effectively the quilt design was still growing as it was used.

I'm not sure if the recipients would be as keen if the colours all start to run, and I don't think they will, but really there is no down side if they do or they don't in my mind.

Baustelle #1 is a combination of cotton solids, flannel solids and subtle prints and a big selection of different off-white/cream fabrics. They included a couple of different cotton weights/grades, 'oh-so-soft' fabric, linen and others that I can't recall at the moment (there's been many quilts since then).

I saw on weewonderfuls that Hilary has used the Freezer Paper stencil method, and I also used this to stencil a Dr Seuss quote on the back, that's the second and third photos. It's silver fabric paint on grey fabric so that's almost impossible to see (so look carefully!). But the 'oh-so'soft' backing on the back was definitely a hit!

So, now I think I can go home and work on my Flea Market Fancy quilt which is print crazy, toned down by white sashing strips. And photos of that quilt will follow shortly!!!