March Ugly Fabric Challenge

March is always a blah month for me. Here in Illinois the days are often gray this time of year. Can't really enjoy winter. We've had enough already. Spring has not yet arrived and it could be some time before it does. Sometimes we get a little snow but then it warms up just enough to make yucky slush and then the snow turns gray too. Too early to garden or shake off the winter clothes. I usually get a cold in March and want to spend more time reading on the couch. Mostly, I think of March as a "holding" month. The month just before spring explodes.

 

 

Gray days. A lot of waiting around, looking out the window, waiting for something to happen.

 

It's a very good time to make a quilt, however. And for the small quilt challenge this month I'd like to suggest something different - something that may perk you up a bit. I am suggesting that you make a quilt using some of those UGLY fabrics you have lying around, ones you thought you'd never use. Maybe you inherited them and can't bear to throw away fabric, even if you don't really like it. Perhaps they came as a surprise in a bundle or tucked in the middle of a scrap package. Maybe you bought them and then when you got home said "Why in the world did I buy this?? Did I forget to take off my sunglasses in the store?"

 

Don't yell at me -  you may love these prints but I do not and I don't know what to do with them.

 

I hardly ever buy fabrics I don't love. It's difficult for me to put ugly fabrics into a quilt I'm making - or even just fabrics that aren't necessarily ugly, just ones I don't especially like. If I don't like them then every time I look at the quilt my eye goes directly to those prints and reminds me that I should have used something different, something more pleasing. I can't help it.

 

Last year around this time I blogged about making a couple of quilts for one of our small quilt challenges using some "ugly" prints I picked up in a package at a quilt show. (Pretty ones were on top, ugly ones tucked underneath. Surprise!) I felt like grabbing my scissors and cutting them up into miniscule pieces and destroyng them right then and there. What quilt could I possibly ever make with some of these?? I don't care for green, brown and yellow.

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These are a little more interesting but I would never buy them. Wait, I did . . . .

 

Here's what I wrote then and it still stands: "Please don't e-mail me to tell me that these are not ugly prints. You have your ugly prints and I am entitled to mine : ) They are "ugly" to me and I would not have bought any of them alone. They came in a packet of pre-cut squares with a lot of really pretty squares and I am trying to make the best of them, LOL. Perhaps an Ugly Quilt challenge someday?" 

 

Ladies, that day is here.

 

                                

            

Last year I paired my ugly prints with some pretty ones. Not too bad.

 

After I mixed those prints with some pretty ones, and worked those pieces into the quilts, I was very pleased with the way they turned out. I think some of you can really have fun with this the way I did. I will say it again, lest I offend anyone  - okay, not all of the prints are necessarily "ugly," they just do not appeal to me in the same way other prints do. Yet I found that when I mixed these ugly prints with  my "lovely" prints the result was great. You see this in antique quilts all the time and I have to get used to doing this more, learning to like my quilts made with prints that don't appeal to me at first. I will never LOVE some of these prints, but I think I can do them justice by using them in a quilt that I will actually come to like.

This was a lot of fun and forced me to go "outside my box" a bit. Now it's your turn.

I added tan setting squares to separate the busy blocks and this is what it all turned into - a not-so-ugly quilt! That post mentioned above from last year also had some advice on how to choose borders for your quilts.

So, this is the challenge for March -  make a small quilt using half-square triangles and some of your ugly fabric. Those in my Yahoo group will be making either the Scrappy Triangles Quilt from the free pattern on my website or the Strippy Triangles quilt in my book American Doll Quilts. (The pattern for this quilt is also in the new Martingale & Co. book  101 Fabulous Small Quilts.) Or you can make it look like the quilt above, with Broken Dishes blocks.

 

 

 

(From American Doll Quilts. Photo by Brent Kane. Doll designed by Gail Wilson)

You may also like this little quilt I saw on eBay . I thought it was very similar to that  free pattern on my website. It also has some ugly prints but the whole effect is very cute I think. Make your quilt with or without the borders. Mix it up with pretty fabric if you're like me and just cannot do it solely with prints you don't like. Use as many ugly prints as you are comfortable with. Make it larger and turn it into a table runner if you like.  Add some applique or strips between the rows. Be creative. And remember, you're doing a good thing by rescuing those ugly fabrics from certain destruction. I carry my scissors with me when I visit guilds and would be happy to help you decide. If you really really don't like how it turns out when you're finished, you can always give it away to that person who complains that you NEVER make her anything . . . .
 

 

Cute or Ugly?

 

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Little Sweethearts runner kit update: The fabric I ordered for the kits is still not here due to some weather difficulties and problems with UPS deliveries. So I have not been able to start putting together the kits yet. I know you're anxious to receive them. I appreciate all of your orders and will work hard to get them out to you soon. Again, thanks for your patience.  

                                                                                                                        -Kathy