We bought the house from heck in 1989, we nearly killed us. By now we have the equivalent of george washington's ax. 4 new handles and 3 new heads but yes, it is still called george washington's ax. Stay out of the thrift stores, you don't need any of that stuff ;) and soon you'll have enough for what is really important. Good for you for thinking outside the box!

Don't know how well these will come out, the first shows the solid green at the top and then four pieces of treated, two bleach and two tea dye. The first bleach is just basic bleach, the second is more subtle and uses cleanser with bleach. Half of each of those pieces will also be dipped in the yellow dye when I'm running that. The darkest piece was from the bag of scraps, I'm going to put into a mild bleach solution and see what it looks like, might find a couple more to work with that way as well.

The second piece is a solid yellow that I tea dyed. Again, I will overdye it with the yellow when I'm doing the white cloth. Think I'm going to get some beets and slice them and put them on some of the white and see how well that transfers, I just want a touch of color. I also have red dye at my disposal, would thin it out to orange.

I really want to be more patterned than subtle, but I already found out I didn't like subtle batik patterns so I better just keep it splotchy.

edit: Plumbing issues still on-going, we had made plans before this happened to treat our neighbors to dinner tonight. He's a contractor and has been gone a couple of days so haven't been able to talk to him yet. I'm figuring after we talk to him we will shut down the water to the tank and have it removed so we can work without it in the way and get the new space ready, complete with essentially a fake wall behind the heater so we can sufficiently earthquake strap it. Not sure with my old house if I will be completely without water or just hot water, but I can put coolers in the bathtub to hold water to flush with and buy a couple of jugs of potable water, and we have our Planet Fitness just a couple miles down the road for showers if we need them that badly.

I’m going out on a limb and choosing my own colors using what I have in my stash. I’m also using only one fabric for each color family. I’ve come up with three possible combinations. Which one you prefer?

quiltsRfun, your fabrics are beautiful! My favorite photo is C, but I think you need the light orange in there for your aqua. If you could find a darker orange for your framboise, I think you'd be safer value-wise, because the orange is reading pretty close to your mediums. I think the green in the second photo is a bit at odds with your other fabrics, so I would go with the other green. So I think A is your best option. It's always such fun to see the quilt in alternate colorways!

I think B, BH made a huge point of contrast between color groups and B has the best contrast especially in the two browns

I think B is the best. Pretty fabrics.

B, because of contrast. But I like the green in A and C better than the one in B.

I like your fabrics and would be in a similar quandary. I think I'm leaning towards A but you might try looking at the yardage amounts and laying out the fabrics proportionately to see if that changes your mind.

There are 4 yards needed of Neutral (egads, my school bus yellow is going to be so bright!). There are roughly the same amounts of Dark Blue (2.5) and Framboise (2.25). Aqua and Green are smaller at 1.5 yards.

So I'd put a long strip of my neutral along one side, two big squares of the Dark Blue and Framboise, and two squares half that size of each of the aqua and green and play around a bit.

Edit: In my case, I'm using light/medium/dark values instead of colors, yellow instead of neutral and a brighter red. It can be harder to chose our fabrics the more we work with what we have on hand instead of what is designed. In the picture I posted earlier in this thread I knew my yellow and red so have those on the edges, and I'm working with the three in the middle. I simply have a reference tone/value (the paint chip) and put it in the pile that is most appropriate. I have to have the dark dark, so the medium above it must be noticeably lighter. Likewise the green I'm using has to be lighter/contrast with the aqua -- which has to be lighter/brighter than the medium!

quiltsrfun- I'm having a really hard time giving you an answer! They are all lovely fabrics.
I have to say B but there is a green in A and C that I absolutely love.
I'm no help!!! :D

Thanks for starting the thread Toverly. Count me in. I look forward to seeing the different fabric choices. So excited! I went through my scraps and came up with enough fabric without shopping. So happy to be part of your group! Tallchick I love your batiks!
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