Vintage Ornaments Backing

Yay! Success! I went to my semi-local quilt store, Wooden Gates Quilts in Danville (19 miles away) and they were able to match both Grunge fabrics that I wanted. In my previous post, I could not figure out the correct fabrics to buy out of the Moda Grunge line to extend the da Vinci fabric that I wanted to use as backing fabric for the Vintage Ornaments quilt. It turns out the matching Grunge fabrics are 30150-226, called Pool, for the light green one and 30150-228, called Ocean, for the deeper turquoise one.

They really do look so different on a computer screen than in real life. In person they have such visual texture and depth they really do not deserve the connotatively dirty name grunge. Although when I researched it, grunge has come to mean a distressed look, which certainly is popular in flooring and furniture. I guess it is kind of natural to extend the trend to textiles.

But I digress. I am excited that I will get to use that da Vinci print that I think is so awesome. I especially like the Vitruvian Man on it (sometimes called the proportions of man). Leonardo da Vinci drew that based on the works of an architect Vitruvius. My  son has his degree in architecture so I am proudly a bit biased and partial to this fabric.

I plan to widen the backing of the da Vinci fabric with the deeper colored grunge on either long edge. That color picks up the turquoise accents like the pocket watch, above the up arrow in the next photo. I also like how the burgundy color in the grunge echos the color of the man of proportions, to the left of the left arrow, and the feather, to the right of the left arrow. I did buy some extra of both the Ocean and Pool Grunge colors and may use one of them for the binding.

By the way, aren't those neat pins with the directional heads? I bought them from Fons and Porter quite a few years ago for those of you who are interested. They are kind of on the long side, but I find them great toward the end of quilt contruction when I want to note block orientation or the direction to press the seams in a row. Yes, I realize that pins with all four directions are somewhat redundant but I indulged myself the frivolity a few Christmases ago. And ya gotta admit... the storage tins they came in are kinda cute, too.

I am looking back at my photos now. Dang it! Someday I will figure out how to take a good picture straight on, without parallax, in the well-sunlit spot under my skylights, without the shadow of my head or the camera falling on what I am photographing. I guess that is why the professional photographers have all those white parasols that bounce the light around. I am not going to go to that extreme, though, for just my little ol' blog.