Help me choose!
 

My BFF of some 40+ years is having a lumpectomy soon and I am whipping up a comfort quilt. I have the pattern planned and drafted out. I had two color options to go with, bright or not-so-bright, after discussion my Tuesday group helped me decide on the not-so-bright florals. I have (3) sets of fat quarters I picked up at the thrift store, 2 are identical and one is different but they both go together. Have other fabrics in my stash as well.

Somewhere in my stash is a perfect piece of mossy green, but I've looked for two days and am moving on. I've ruled out the beige tone-on-tone background and I'm down to these two. Both have plenty of fabric (roughly 1 yard cuts, I need about 28 inches).

So, patterned or reads-as-solid are my current choices. Do you have a preference or should I keep looking and what should I be looking for?

I like the lighter one better. It is more cheerful!

Would any of these work?

Of course, your idea of "mossy green" and my idea of "mossy green" may not even be on the same side of the color wheel.:rolleyes:

Oh, Bearisgray, I like some of those quite a lot but my plain is to start cutting today while the mood and the spirit are willing. The one I was looking for is most like your D fabric, but a little brighter and maybe 3-4 similar shades of green, less overall color.

The good news is that I did find a missing project bag while I was looking, it had fallen off the back of the shelf and was in a black fabric Safeway bag so very hard to see back there...

Guess I'm going to do the flip a coin thing at noon unless I've started cutting before then, I can really go either way and have all morning on which I like better and why. Helps also that I've seen the ones I rejected, a lot of them were simply too light or too dark, and medium seems to be the better option. The fat quarter fabrics are more blue but have some green, the background fabrics in the picture look greener to me in real life.

I can always make another quilt for her later but I want to get this one to her quickly.

I like the blue floral at top of pic. Very feminine and cozy look to it.

Argh! The indecision in me is so real.

While I wanted the low contrast originally because I feel those modern florals need it, here's a high contrast option:

This is a tough choice. Going with your plan of "not so bright florals" I like the bottom fabric (1st picture). I like the softer tone on tone look of the bottom fabric. The scale of the top fabric doesn't feel right against the squares. Just an opinion. I know the quilt will be beautiful and loved. Best wishes for your friend.

Can we see the fabric squares against that fabric without the competing blue (on top). Of course monitors are different.

Is that what you wanted, Rhonda? The extra fabrics up top will also be used.

Because of my vision issues I usually go high contrast. But trying to stretch a bit with the "low volume" popular concept.

I think the green is much better. It lets the patterns on the squares show more.

I like the green with the squares too.

I like the top piece in the first picture with your other colors. It has enough pattern to give it some "life" yet works nicely for a low contrast or soft look, IMHO. (I must admit, I am not a fan of greens, except maybe lime green). Which ever you choose, your friend will feel the love and support you are sending her!

If I were picking between the first two, I would use the top color in the first picture but now that I see them against a green, I like the contrast the green provides. Whatever you choose of the three will be beautiful, though.

Yes to the top blue one if those 2 are the choice but the green is even better.

I like the green too

A thought, and this may just be me, but....when I am hurting and feeling bad, I really want low contrast, soft, loving everything. Really colorful and bright things just make me more aware of how bad I really feel. That being said, I would stick with your original soft blues as the background and sprinkle the brighter squares in the quilt. That will give the softness and comfort with a little bit of pick-me-up, perky colors.

https://www.quiltingboard.com/attach...7-nicole-3.jpg

I like this one. Oops no photo attached. The light background with the “kind of blending squares”. Very calming and pleasing to the eye. I don’t care for the dark green background.

I have appreciated everyone's comments. This morning I was leaning back towards the lighter green-blue (bottom of the first picture).

However, I have committed to the dark green background, mostly because my husband liked it the best and I have to get going. I think the ideal background fabric would have been some sort of medium brown with a bit of blue in it, but there wasn't any of that in the stash.

I can still change my mind but I've already cut the dark green so it is unlikely... but it has happened before.

I'm cutting down the subsets, will have to count to see how many I will have and what will be left. Most of them will have two sets of blocks, the very large floral and the trees with the bunnies will just have one set each.

This top is what I call a "direct lift" of this pattern,
https://www.apqshop.com/Two-of-Kind-p/qgr-00240.htm

Obviously my fabric choice is going to give a different look than the batik option! I'm more inspired by the 30s option. If I had more time, I do a color gradation going from light to dark, but that would require 9 different coordinated fabrics per row for six rows. It would also be fun to play with light/dark, the way it is designed it depends more on color contrast than value contrast.

There was a recent thread here by one of the members about how much more yardage would be needed to expand the size of the quilt top. In trying to figure that out, I drew out my interpretation of the pattern. My block sizing is different, the finished size/number of rows is different. And most importantly for me anyway, is the way I have designed the construction (apparently significantly different than the pattern) it will be very fast and easy to put together.

Thanks everyone for the input. As always in this sort of thing, the recipient will appreciate whatever it is I do. Goal is to have the top completed by Sunday evening, quilted by the end of next week. My next problem will be deciding the backing! My original bright and healing print doesn't go with these, but I have things that do, or could, or at least are large enough to use! My friend is also a bit of a quilter, not full-bore like me but she can appreciate using stash -- especially since she has recently seen how much stash I have. She would be disappointed in me if I bought anything for this project. Hubby is going to his mini-family reunion this weekend and I will be on my own with no distractions other than the pets :)

Your friend will be so touched by your thoughtfulness and very much can appreciate the labor of love it is.

Not going to post my opinion because you have made your decision, but I just wanted to say what a great friend you are to do this quilt!

She is the sister of my heart and I would not be the person I am today if it was not for her.

It's the thought that counts and not the fabric :)

In case you were wondering, here's what it currently looks like. I still have to find a backing in stash, the one I'm thinking about should be plenty big if I want to add borders, but I'm thinking just binding.

I made some cutting mistakes, thought I needed 30 blocks with background fabric but only 24 or something like that. Argh! But I recovered, you can't even see that the four outer corner setting triangles are pieced a bit.

If I had to do it all over again I would go with a lighter background, still haven't found that perfect piece of mossy green... But I learned a lot about myself and my friendship while making this and it is an act of love and will be given and received with that understanding :)

I really love your current choice. The green brings out all the different fabrics and I believe the lighter ones would have muted if you had gone with a blue fabric.

You worked fast and it turned out very well!

It went together very fast and surprisingly easily. I did not layout the top before piecing only after the blocks were made. There are two blocks, both 4-patches (although one I call L+1 and is actually only 3 pieces). All straight sewing, no partial seams, no Y seams, nothing but basic straight line 4-patch mode, except for the diagonal set. I made all the L1 blocks first, relying on contrasting fabrics and not where they were going to end up. Then each of the +1 part of the block needed (two) sets of one square of it and the background.

First you layout the L1 blocks on point, then fill in the 4-patches with those two-sets... clear as mud but I took some pictures along the way.

I could have a lot of my OCD fun with this design... color grading each set from light to dark. Playing with prisms and colors of the rainbow. Alternating light and dark instead of similar values with contrasting colors.

I think if I ever do make it again, I'd change the orientation to that shown in the "done"picture, but with no solid squares. Just stacked up hearts. The solid squares are actually the long edge as originally designed and as shown in the layout shot.

It's looking good.

I prefer the lower blue in your first photo. And strongly vote for flannel backing -- more comforting.