Bella Solid Parade – Stash selection

Today, as part of the Bella Solid 2012 parade, I was given 4 solids to match to my stash and then create a project that could be made in one day. The 4 solids are:

Moda Bella Solid # 209 – Clementine

Moda Bella Solid # 207 – Glacier

Moda Bella Solid # 202 – Graphite

Moda Bella Solid # 204 – Plum

Alone, these solids would make a great modern quilt without the company of any other fabric. They would provide both a warm and cool contrast within a quilt top made from simple blocks with a large proportion of negative space using the grey.

Alternatively, they could be matched with a variety of fabrics, belonging to single collections or a menagerie of different fabrics from different collections and designers.

Solids with impact, like the Clementine, look great when they are used as an accent, rather than a feature. A splash of Clementine to the three following fabric selections, would make the design ‘pop’.

Citrine Heirloom – Joel Dewberry

Tradewinds – Lily Ashbury

Heirloom – Joel Dewberry

Sis Boom

While they could be used in moderation to frame a block, the The Graphite, Glacier and Plum would make beautiful backgrounds where negative space would be an important feature of the design.

Where solids are used in large areas of a quilt, using a contrast thread of a heavier weight when quilting, can liven up the space. For example, I might use a plumb thread on the Grantite and a mid grey on the Plumb solid in perle cottons.

Don’t feel that you have to match exactly a colour in a collection. While Tula’s Nightshade collection is not quite a match for the Glacier, used in moderation it would still blend along side the Plumb.

The Melody Miller large bee print would look great with the Plumb …

or a spot or two of the Clementine.

Text prints are of interest in the quilting world at the moment. They make great backgrounds and blenders for an array of fabrics. I could see the Graphite blended with the text prints ( Annie’s Farm Seed Catalog and Crabtastic ) and a splash of a lipstick pink fabric from Suzuko Koseki – Catch Letters.

I matched Glacier with some prints I had from Velocity with a Suzuko Koseki piece in Lime. I think Lime partners well with Glacier.

I tried Glacier, Plum and Graphite with a more traditional collection – Barbara Brackman’s ‘A Morris Tapestry’. The rich colours and patterns in this collection would be framed beautifully in these solids.

Lastly, I teamed up Plum and Clementine with a sketch (Tangerine) solid and two art gallery pure elements solids Cabernet and Colzumel blue.

It was so difficult to confine this post to only a small example of fabric combinations. There are so many fabrics that would look wonderful with these four solids.

Please visit my blog tomorrow where I will be posting a tutorial for a project that can be made in one day using the four Bella solids.