… ugly fabric won’t look so ugly. At least that’s what Bonnie Hunter told us at a long ago workshop. She was dealing with millenium fabric, which was truly godawful. I tried to find an example to show you, but it seems to have been banned from the internet.
Because I had less than wonderful results in some pieces from my Sue Benner paint/print dye workshop. I wanted to cut those up. I thought a pattern called Flux, designed for Art Gallery Fabrics, would work to punch up my fabrics with bold solids and impose a grid order on them. While I used the same dye colors in my fabrics, the patterns were all over the place.
My plan worked, kind of. The pattern calls for increasing the size of the center blocks with each row from the center. It turned out more of each fabric was needed than I had. I decided to use the same fabric on the diagonals rather than in rows to eke out my supplies. I still didn’t have enough fabric, so I threw in a commercial fabric from Joann’s clearance bin.
Here’s my original sketch. Nothing like good old graph paper. The interior squares are crooked because I cut them out, colored them separately to give myself more flexibility and set them down on my foundation grid. At this point I still hadn’t decided on the center of the design. I ended up trying at least two different schemes for that area.
In fabric that translated to this.
I’ve called it “Trip Around Columbus” as a tribute to the trip around the world effect. Because it’s 56 inches square, I may have it quilted on a longarm.
I remade some of the squares because the first fabrics I chose just didn’t work. Those rejects gave me enough material to make a go-with wall hanging, called “Fractured Trip Around Columbus.”
I bet you thought I never used patterns. If someone else has done the work, why should I reinvent the wheel.
The Snarky Quilter 
Such a cool approach–makes me want to go look for ugly fabric to play with!
As I’ve discovered, one person’s ugly is someone else’s lovely. I remember the looks of horror on the faces of fellow guild members after they saw what I bought from show vendors. (Hey, it was gorgeous African damask.)
First one is nice but the second is dynamic, I think the biggest difference is the first one exists on a flatter plane then the second. “Fractured Trip Around Columbus” has much more depth and mystery –I like that in a quilt.
Thanks. I think the solids I used in the larger piece flatten it, while the fractured piece has more prints and mottled effects – the lines become more blurred.
I like these a lot…if you hadn’t told us you were disappointed in some of the fabric dying results, I surely wouldn’t have known looking at the final results.
I guess I let the cat out of the bag, but I do want folks to see that you can always find a way to use even failures.
I like the play of sizes in the first one. But I like the play of color, shape, and line in the second. Thanks for sharing.
I guess I’ll just have to combine them.