Let's go low volume ( ...ish)

After all the bright and sunny colours encountered through the Modern Quilting Stash Bee, I felt the need to try a  bit of low volume backgrounds for a change and whilst I am not a pale and subtle type, I am hopeful this will turn out OK once I have finished with it. If you're not a quilting aficionado "Low Volume" means subtle type fabrics and colours that do not leap out at you and smack you in the eye, either in colour or pattern. They can be very effective to set something else off or be used to give a lovely gentle look to a  quilt for a particular place. You may need to bear with me for a bit though on this one before it looks at all interesting on the blog.

I found the fabrics lurking in my stash and after  a bit of googling found they came from back in 2008 and are called "Cats in Paris" . To be perfectly honest, this makes me cringe a bit for I cannot imagine what made me buy them, as whilst I have been a  very happy cat parent in the past, I am not a great cartoon motif type. Nor am I that much of a pastel cutesy type girl either ( unless there may be a moose involved?) so that is why they have probably sat in the stash for over 4 years. A couple of the matching fabrics though are really lovely, especially the spot and the small star and I must have had some kind of plan back then, but heaven knows. Anyway, as a low volume I think they are working pretty well. The piecing is 2 1/2 inch squares and ended up with a finished size of around 48" x 38" ( I know weird size- sorry).

The plan to "funk it up a bit" is drawn from a pattern in the most recent edition of "Fat Quarterly", but I want to keep that under my hat for the moment. My big task though is to find a strong contrasting colour to add on top off the pale pinks, greens and beiges ( yuch, cant believe I even used that word). I have had the Kona colour chart out and what I really want is a dark dark chocolate colour and the best I think is going to be no. 1136, Espresso, but I am still a bit torn. As you will see there is actually a dark contrasting fabric which I do like but I only have a fat quarter which is not enough and despite more googling I cannot find anymore. Given it is a 2008 fabric I am not at  all surprised though. The contrast is nearly a black but the Kona blacks look a  bit too dense so I think the dark chocolate will be best , especially with the pale and delicate pink. So that's me now off to order me a yard or so. A tiny bit of me says to hunt for a tiny print but I have a feeling that could take me for ever and I really want to crack on with this as it will, for a first, involve circles. That's all I am saying for now - 'cos as you may recall I don't do circles!

See you soon...