Transparency Quilts

Went today to my first class of a 3 session course called 'Transparency Quilts' at my LQS, Manhattan (my favourite place to be).  The instructor is John Kubiniec, quilter and quilt pattern designer for Windham Fabrics and we're working from the book 'Transparency Quilts' by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr.

To create a transparency you combine three different fabrics to give the impression that when two are overlayed the third is the colour change where you see them through each other.  Lots of class discussion about colour terminology: Hue (colour); Value (tone-dark & tint-light); and Saturation (brightness & intensity).  We spoke about the colourwheel and why, when creating a transparency, the obvious colour mixing combinations (blue+yellow=green) don't always work. We discussed the use of solids vs prints - really interesting stuff but then the trickiest bit - venturing out from the classroom into the shop to put what we'd learnt into practice purchasing fabrics to test out the theory.

Here's my purchases:

Caught chewing the sofa!

I'm thinking I'll make a small quilted throw for one of my sofas (basically to cover up the hole that my 9 month old dog has torn in the seat cushion - she's actually torn 2 of 4 sofa seat cushions and yet we still love her, what is it with humans and dogs?!  Oh, while I'm typing this I've just looked over and she's pulling a bit more of the cover apart and in typical Chrissie style I find myself running to take a photo so I can share it with you all rather than trying to save the sofa!!!

'Share and Share Alike' quilt by Ringle & Kerr

 


Back to my quilt plans, I've decided to work with solids while I get the hang of this transparency thing, the 3 top neutral fabrics are my chosen colours to create the transparent blocks while the gold, off white and aqua fabrics are possible sashing colours (the aqua's in case I change my mind about the sofa and decide I want it for the bedroom).

This is the quilt pattern I'm going to make.  It's Ringle & Kerr's 'Share and Share Alike' pattern from their book 'Transparency Quilts'.  Looking at it now I realise that my own colour choices are pretty much identical to theirs so hopefully that pretty much guarantees it'll work.