Tuesday, February 4, 2020

A Lesson in Value, Part 2

Taken together, these shots of the two versions of my Road Trip Redux blocks illustrate the importance of choosing the right value of the fabrics in a design. The first version uses two coral fabrics I already had in my stash, and the lighter coral proved to be so similar in value to the slighter darker coral, that the design was muddied. The second version is the same, except I replaced the blocks with the problematic fabric, using a lighter value coral.



The design reads much more clearly with the corrected value in the second shot. I hope the extra step of replacing the fabric will help me remember to bite the bullet and get the right fabrics in the first place when what I have stashed is questionable. Quilting takes too much time to use fabrics that aren't right for the design!

Up next: a few more rows on the design and a review of the Road Trip Redux pattern. I have some thoughts.

2 comments:

Rachel Hauser said...

Wow, that does look a million times better. I'm guessing that was hard to make yourself do. Way to go on pushing through!

FlourishingPalms said...

Wow. I can really see the difference. What a good example of the importance of value. I cover a little bit about value, contrast and scale when I teach beginner quiltmaking classes, but value can be tough to understand. I think it takes exposure to fabric choices, and time, to begin to fully comprehend what value can do for a quilt. Too often I see quilts that are made with medium range values, and too many of them, so the quilt is muddy. That's what I try to avoid... but don't always succeed.