liberty mess

 

my favorite british biscuits (discovered on our UK trip in 2017 and imported regularly) and my favorite british fabrics. this is a good combination.

liberty + chambray has become my favorite way to use my precious tana lawn. another good combination.

the way this new liberty + chambray quilt is turning out is not such a good combination. i've felt this way about my improv liberty strip quilt before during the process, but this one is feeling particularly messy.

the common theme here was liberty prints heavy on blues. many are fall-feeling with tans, browns, and some oranges in them. about half are more primary centric. i was counting on the blues to tie it all together.

i had one small stack of leftover chambray strips from another project that i wanted to make use of with this quilt. because there was a limited amount of the chambray, i had to make the liberty strips much longer. i tried interspersing the long liberty strips with short chambray pieces; the opposite of my norm. i also turned the strips to run vertical rather than horizontal.

and despite the infusion of ginger and dark chocolate biscuits, this is feeling like one giant, ugly mess.

from a distance, it makes me think of holly hobbie (not a bad association, and completely unrelated to my general feelings about how it's looking).

i think i prefer smaller liberty pieces and longer chambray strips in the mix, but that was counter to my "use what i have" goal.

what a mess.

part of this is because i'm not actually over fond of several of these prints. they arrived looking different than expected (colors reading a different tone, more dull or less vibrant). some were new-to-me liberty prints i was giving a chance and found i don't actually prefer. i thought if i put them all together and threw in enough of the fabrics i do like in the mix, they'd play nicely.

second guessing myself a lot at the moment.

that red definitely needs to come out.

and it's one of the prints i do like.

is it too late to unpick the whole mess?

i think so.

stay tuned.