Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Struggling to find the right fabric

Hi everyone--

Nice to see all the pictures of your starts. I'm struggling to find the right fabric for my piece.

I want to lightly paint the sky section of the fabric so it is different from the rest of the ground, but I can't find a fabric that I like the base color enough to use. I wan't something that will look good with the rose border, but will also look nice underneath the painted sky section. I'd love to use a green, but whoever heard of a green-blue sky? White is too stark for me, and I haven't yet found brown that I like, or that isn't too dark.

Part of the issue is that the fabric needed is so big. There aren't any stores near me that sell pieces large enough for this piece, and I don't like to order online for stuff like this, as the fabric in person can sometimes be very different from the online picture. It's a lot of money to spend on a piece of fabric I might never use.

Yesterday I tried tea and coffee dyeing some fabric I had in my stash, but the tea dye came out too red and the coffee dye didn't get dark enough.

I'll keep looking, and will be keeping an eye out on the colors you all are using on your pieces. Maybe something will inspire me!

Hoping to get started soon, otherwise I will be WAY behind...

Carol S.

5 comments:

  1. You have almost the same problem as I had. A lot of lovely linen but to small pieces. Ordered a piece from France, good or not, I´m gonna use it.
    Annika

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  2. Have you thought about using a light blue fabric and then gently bleaching out areas, or painting the clouds instead of the sky?

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    1. Hi Cathy--I hadn't though of that, but I don't really want to use blue under the rose/greenery border.

      I'm making this way more complicated than it needs to be, I think. But now that you've mentioned it, I would certainly consider that if nothing else seems to work. Thanks for the suggestion!

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  3. I ordered more plain light green linen and when it comes in I will try to lighten some of the sky area. I ordered a yard so I will have some to play with if I dont like it :). It is fun to play and I am sure the right fabric will come by. No need to rush because the first 3 pattern sections do not have a lot of stitching.

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  4. I love your idea of painting in the sky sections....but would be way to scared to do this myself! I ordered a huge piece online and it finally got here last week....I only realised last night as I was cutting it just how long this piece will be :) I can't wait to get it started!

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