memere..
I have been thinking the same thing about mine...
Several years ago I bought lots of Civ War fabrics for another Civil War Medallion quilt [that I have yet to begin] I think I have enough fabric for 3 or 4 different quilts. When I decided to do a Dear Jane I figured I should use those fabrics [although the Kaffe Fasset version on greenfairyquilts blog keeps pulling at me!!] Any rate - My first three blocks, which I posted way near the beginning, are very drab. They look like the lights were dropped into black coffee! I started this way because my dear historian friend pointed out that Civil War quilts were drab. I wasn't sure if I liked it and didnt quite understand why many if not most of the fabrics of "civil war reproductions' were not drab at all, in fact they were quite bright and cheery. So I did some research of my own and found that women used all their left overs during the Civil War and the fabrics sold just prior were very bright. Therefore quilts from that time period are very scrappy and pretty bright. Although most of the quilts you do find have prints offset with muslin so the background is pretty constant, I did vary my backgrounds as well - and I used lots of light and drab prints. Check out my posts on #605 and particularly #606. The first triangle there has that drab light. I'm not sure they look that great together either. But I figure it will just add to the scrappiness and once I have 255 of these babies [eeeek!] they will be scattered around and it won't matter. The sashing we put in between will be constant and that will tie it all together. [at least this is what I hope for both of us!!!]