Buried under Purple Choices

I have over 100 different purple fabrics in my collection. I had a plan, many many years ago, to make a purple quilt for my Mom. I decided on a design, bought light purple/lavender fabric as the background and began collecting purple prints for the main design elements. 

The Overlapping Purple Print Design Plan

That was so long ago. I never got that quilt made. My Mom died years ago. But I still have all this fabric and just recently it has been on my mind. With all the other projects I have on my plate right now I don't know why this has come to mind. I don't know why I feel compelled to look at this again after all these years. It's beyond my comprehension. But I'm going along with it and to see where this goes. 

I decided I wasn't going to make the quilt I designed for my Mom but I've gone through every single piece of purple fabric I have and cut one 4 1/2" square from each print. It's been an interesting journey, looking at each one of these pieces of fabric and trying to remember why I have it and where I got it. I know I've had some of this fabric for over 20 years. Some if it seems ugly to me now and I can't imagine ever having bought it. Some if it I can't renumber at all and probably got it when I was subscribed to a monthly fat quarter club. But that was a choice also. I choose to blindly get fabric sent to me every month even when I didn't like a lot of it. But some of the fabric I love and clearly remember where and when I got it. 

At this point I'm playing with design ideas. I think I will at least sew a quilt top. It may never be finished beyond that. I have several unfinished tops because that's the part I like to do. But I haven't decided if I am just going to make it with only one square of each fabric or go ahead and cut more squares. 

Quilt size calculations and new design ideas.

One square of each print could easily be fashioned into a lap quilt or a larger wall hanging. I have enough fabric, if I repeat prints, to go to any size larger I want. But I don't need another bed size quilt and there is a better chance I will actually finish it if I keep it small. 

And now I have this huge pile of trim scraps! Normally it would all just go in the trash but since I've started doing collage art and mixed media, a pile of what used to be trash now looks like a pile of opportunity to me. There are a number of things I can think of to do with this "trash" including collage elements or fabric beads.

 

The purple trims trash piles.

You see here some of the trimmings already stiffened with a mat acrylic medium wash laid out on freezer paper to dry. It's a very easy way to make fabric usable like a paper, stiff enough to cut small shapes with no fraying but still pliable. I do this first when I plan to use fabric as a collage element.

So besides one or more purple quilts to add to my project To Do list, I'll also probably do 'something' with the scraps. I may end up doing that first. Art and collage is so much easier than sitting and sewing for hours and I have a whole lot more wall space for art than beds to put yet another quilt on.