fresh pack potential – peppered cottons quilt

Maybe you get this feeling: when you have a new pack of markers, or crayons, or pencils, and they’re all just so perfect-pointy-beautiful and ordered that it’s hard to break into them and use them as tools. That’s how I felt about this fabric stack.

It was a bundle of 25 different peppered cottons, similar to oakshott or shot cottons, but in a quilting weight, and really noticeable soft. I bought them because I’d long admired others’ stacks, and when Brenda shared that the manufacturer, studioE, was having a quilt contest, I thought I had just the thing.

But then my idea didn’t work. It just didn’t. And all the fabric looked somehow purple. So, I put it all in color order and put it in a pile next to my sewing machine to just sit for some time. While I was giving the fabric the cold shoulder, I realized that what I really liked best about those gorgeous fabrics was the way they looked when ordered up next to each other. So why not keep the order instead or trying to force the color idea I had planned?

That’s what I did. And there is SO MUCH color. I mostly kept the order of my pile, but I injected a couple lines of flying geese in out-of-order colors, just to keep things interesting. It brightens up my corner.